


Timed Death

by TobermorianSass



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Relationships, F/M, Gen, Harry Potter Next Generation, Implied Slash, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Original Character(s), the formula one au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-03-04 04:33:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 48,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2942960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TobermorianSass/pseuds/TobermorianSass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the years following the second wizarding war, young witches and wizards discover the joys of motorsport, of Formula One in particular, and invent their own version of this sport. To everyone's surprise, the sport captures the imagination of the wizarding world and draws wizards and witches from all over the world to participate in its races. </p>
<p>Vying for the 2025 championship title, Scorpius Malfoy and Albus Potter - once the best of friends and brothers in arms - turn serious rivals. Friendly jostling turns hostile. Every pit-stop becomes a nerve-wracking ordeal. Every crash, every mechanical failure, is now supposed sabotage.</p>
<p>A crash. Or maybe two. Hubris, death or worse?</p>
<p>And is it really <em>just</em> about racing or is there something else afoot?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Later chapters will be Next-Gen centric unlike the prologue.
> 
> Based off [ this thread ](http://kobayboshi.tumblr.com/post/93126249131). S/O to [ kobayboshi ](http://kobayboshi.tumblr.com) and [ everambling](http://everambling.tumblr.com) for being terrible enablers.

In 1897, Elizabeth Anne Trevithick sent a proposal to the Minister for Magic of the United Kingdom, to convert public transportation in wizarding Britain from the outdated broom and the horse-carriage to the rather modern motor-car.  Faris Spavin, not exactly a prejudiced man, but the kind of man who was jovial in a deeply unpleasant manner, suggested in his over-red-faced way (and rather too jovially for her taste) that she stick to what she knew; albeit, pushing papers in the DoM.

Michael Boot, then head of the Department of Mysteries smiled rather too triumphantly at the failure of her proposal.

In 1943, Daniel Smith, of Hufflepuff fortune fame and well-known eccentric, procured – horror of horrors – a car of his own. The wizarding world did not know it then, but Mr Smith, resourceful and entirely obsessed with the muggle world, had managed to purchase Bugatti’s very rare 1937 model by some very careful and tricky maneuvering. Few appreciated the special nature of this acquisition. Most of them ridiculed him and _The Daily Prophet_ ran an article on the Unpatriotism of Some Citizens Who Spend Their Money On Muggle Frivolities Instead of Supporting the War Effort, preferring to respond indirectly rather than make tangible insinuations prosecutable under libel laws. Nevertheless, Daniel Smith sued the newspaper and in an unexpected turn of events, found himself on the stand explaining to the Wizengamot why he had spent nearly one tenth of his annual income on a Bugatti instead of investing in the anti-Grindelwald war effort.

The consequent trials _nearly_ cost the Smith family their fortune and their respectability; the latter retrieved and preserved entirely by the hard work of Daniel Smith's son, David, and his fortune at having married into the Selwyn family.

In 1965, to the horror of the wizarding world, Minister Nobby Leach insisted that they introduce the automobile as a form of high-security transportation for officials of the Ministry for Magic. Unlike brooms, these automobiles would be endowed with wards and other shielding charms normally used on homes. Even better, they could be equipped with Confundus and notice-me-not charms to simultaneously ensure easy passage through London’s terrible traffic as well as hide them from the eyes of certain terrorist groups best left unnamed.

Nobby Leach was hounded out of office three years later and rumour had it that it was entirely the result of Abraxas Malfoy's scheming, though of course, no tangible proof could be found. And although nearly twenty years later, under Milicent Bagnold’s gentle prodding, the Wizengamot finally agreed to use cars for high-security transportation when portkeys and Apparation were not feasible modes of transport without very much fanfare, much of it had to do with the heady exhilaration of the post-war years and very little with changing attitudes. Nobby Leach's stint as Minister for Magic, alas, remained very much tainted by the whole automobile affair.

For years people had pushed and pushed, only to be met with the kind of obstinate resistance peculiar to the wizarding world. All that their pushing had achieved in over a century was to put cars in the garages of purebloods who then proceeded to pretend that they did _not_ own those cars at all and that they _definitely_ did _not_ find them _fascinating_ or indeed think that muggles could be inventive. And then proceeded to protest very loudly every time the Ministry attempted to introduce some kind of reform to help the wizarding world become less conspicuous as the muggle world progressed rapidly and began throwing up new technologies every year.

In short, therefore, when war heroes Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan, in collaboration with Lisa Turpin from the Department of Mysteries, and the grandson of Daniel Smith; Zacharias Smith; announced that they would be running tests on a magically-modified classic Mark 2 Jaguar in 2011, no one took them very seriously or even dreamed that this would spark a revolution of sorts. A few eyebrows were raised and the gutter press attempted to make a mountain out of a molehill by running the regular inflammatory articles about how _surely_ this marked the downfall of wizarding society.

On the 15th of September, 2011, to the delight of the British wizarding press ( _it’s a doomed endeavor; already had to postpone it once; magic and technology – a disaster waiting to happen_?) Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas wheeled their new creation out on to a magically extended version of the abandoned test track at Folkingham and Zacharias Smith, saturnine and grumpy at the world, took the wheel.

To the _horror_ of the waiting members of the press, the tests were _successful_ and for a whole week, Zacharias Smith actually went around with a _smile_. A smug smile, that made everyone – including the usually amiable Dean Thomas – want to slap him, but a smile nonetheless.

It might have, like every previous attempt to introduce wizards to newer – _less obvious_ – means of travel, faded into the ether and might have been forgotten, if not for two bored teenage wix, playing out rivalries that were thought to have died along with the end of the second wizarding war.

At first glance, Lucilla Yaxley and Margaret Donovan seemed unlikely candidates to introduce the glamorous and dangerous world of motorsport racing to the wizarding world. Lucilla Yaxley was a pureblood and that too, not any pureblood, but the daughter of a former Death Eater. Like all of those who had been raised by Death Eaters and former Death Eaters, Lucilla had inherited the pureblood scorn for muggleborn technology and like her mother, scoffed at the idea of wizards ever using muggle transportation. Why would they, when they could Apparate up and down the country in a matter of seconds, or take a portkey from one country to another?

Margaret Donovan, on the other hand, was a muggleborn from Birmingham and her father was a police officer who had instilled in her a strong instinct to follow the law and avoid trouble at all costs. So while she followed, with avid interest in her younger days, the ups and downs of Michael Schumacher and then later, Lewis Hamilton, she was _quite_ certain that she herself would never move in motor-racing circles, or actually take part in motorsports of any sort. Especially not those of dubious legal status.

They were in their fifth and third years respectively when the tests first happened. Margaret Donovan was loudly enthusiastic about it and her housemates agreed with her, as enthusiastically as thirteen year olds who had never seen a car in action before could be enthusiastic about something, which, of course, left Maggie Donovan feeling disheartened and apt to spending more time alone in the library, attempting to piece together the mechanics of how it could have worked. In the end she gave in and wrote to Dean Thomas, since he looked like the nicest and least intimidating of all of them, and so began a long and fruitful correspondence between the two, wherein she discovered that while she had no proclivity for Potions or DADA, she was rather good at Transfiguration and Charms and those both came in handy while fiddling around with engines. By the time she was fifteen, she’d managed to take her older brother’s beat up old Volkswagen Golf and spiff up the engine till it ran even _better_ than it did before. Until the charms gave out, at least, which they did with alarming regularity whenever he did attempted to turn a corner a bit too fast – and which had resulted, inevitably, in him pressuring his father into buying Margaret her _own_ car to experiment on, so he could, at least, drive home without being afraid of being killed.

Lucilla Yaxley, however, was _not_ enthusiastic about the tests at all, but she was determined to show that she was forward-looking and not at all like her father, or indeed, any of the purebloods who’d fought on the wrong side of the war, and so with that determination, set about learning everything she could about it. Two years later when she was seventeen, she was fortunate enough to be introduced to Zacharias Smith at one of her mother’s _soirees_ as ‘your fourth cousin on your father’s side, or something of that sort’ and so, she supposed, it was very natural that she should alert him of her interest in his experiments. He seemed rather bored with the whole affair but offered, out of politeness – as he would say later – to show her How It Had Been Done.

And that was how Margaret Donovan, Gryffindor and muggleborn, and Lucilla Yaxley, Ravenclaw and pureblood, finally crossed paths.

This crossing of paths coincided, fortunately, with the postwar angst of a new generation of teenagers who were all looking for ways to distinguish themselves from the crop of war heroes who had all gone before.  There was nothing to be heroic about, because the war had been fought and won and their parents had made sure they would all be _safe_ and sound, away from any heroism of any sort. All they had was their _ennui_ and a need to prove themselves and into that void stepped Margaret Donovan and Lucilla Yaxley with an idea that satisfied their need for brash heroics and reckless excitement.

Motor racing.

So many little things came together at that one moment in time to forcibly thrust this sport into the wizarding world’s popular consciousness.

If Lucilla Yaxley had not absorbed some of her father’s extremist beliefs, it might have never happened in the first place. There was, it seemed, some use for pureblood prejudice against muggleborns, because without it, Lucilla Yaxley might never have insulted Margaret Donovan and Margaret Donovan – Margaret never-broken-a-law-in-my-life Donovan – might have never challenged Lucilla Yaxley to a race to prove their worth in a fit of pique.

If Zacharias Smith had not decided at that moment, to have a smoke before Apparating back to London, he might have retreated, his ‘duty’ by his fourth cousin fulfilled and in doing so, would have missed the spectacular showdown that ensued and would have almost certainly, as a result, never written that iconic article: _The Wizard's New Duel_. He might never have covered that race, writing in trashy hyperbole as a means of punishing these two girls for having him be witness to what he called their ‘teenage existentialism’ (which of course, was far inferior to the existentialism of adulthood) and he might never have sent it off to _The Daily Prophet_ as a joke, never once thinking that they might actually publish it in all earnestness.

And if that article had never been published, boys and girls and everyone inbetween, all around the wizarding world might have never had their imaginations fired by this stirring tale and they might have never sent letters in their _thousands_ to _The Daily Prophet_ and indeed, Timed Death, the new form of the wizard's duel, might never have become popular at all.

And in an effort to combat the sheer _dangerousness_ of Timed Death, Thomas and Finnigan, out of what Smith would call ‘a misplaced sense of responsibility’, might never have organized track days – which turned into races, more often than not – for these excitable teens and young adults.

So many things might have never have come to pass if all these little things had not all intersected at this one moment - histories and hatreds and imaginations and all the innumerable quirks of people, times and places.

And a sport might have never been invented nearly overnight.


	2. 24th August 2025

“So what now?” Teddy Lupin asked Victoire and Margaret as they waited in the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic, along with their families and various members of the Press, for the Minister for Magic to make his speech.

Margaret shrugged, “It’s the end, isn’t it? Minister Finch-Fletchley’s hardly going to let the sport continue now.”

Teddy sighed and ran his hand through his hair, normally a bright electric blue, but a mousy brown today. “I was _so close_.”

“ _Teddy!_ ” Victoire smacked his arm, “You can’t be thinking about yourself at a time like this.”

“Sorry,” he grumbled, “But it’s _true_.”

Margaret rolled her eyes and walked away, “You keep that up Ted and you’ll have no friends left.”

 Victoire turned to him, hands on her hips but he shushed her.

“I really don’t think Lucilla would have wanted for us to stop halfway,” he said.

“Lucilla’s _dead_ ,” Victoire replied, her voice harsh and – Teddy thought – close to breaking, “Or did you miss the part where they hauled her burnt body out of the wreckage of the car?”

“I was there,” he told her, roughly, “I was _one_ of the people who managed to pull her out of the wreckage. In case you hadn’t noticed, Lucilla was my friend too, y’know.”

Victoire rubbed her forehead, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have –“

“Leave it.”

* * *

 “You could at least _pretend_ to be more disturbed by everything, if nothing else. Or at least look less bored. For fuck’s sake. At least _pretend_ you have a heart.”

“She was my _fourth_ cousin from the half of my family we don’t talk with at all, I really _don’t_ see why you’re getting so bloody worked up about this Justin. Other people have been injured, _critically_ , on the racetrack, but I don’t see you rushing off to visit them at St. Mungo’s, or making touching speeches about how it was all a waste of young lives and _so tragic_ –“

“Please spare me your moralizing Zach, you never bothered to push for higher safety standards, you just _let_ those _kids_ run wild and stood back grinning –“

Dennis Creevey cleared his throat and Minister Finch-Fletchley and Zacharias Smith fell quiet, as the lift continued on its way up to the Atrium.

“We’ll talk about this later,” Justin muttered under his breath as the lift doors opened for them.

* * *

The thing about the English weather, Lucilla reflected, was that it chose the most inopportune moments to decide to rain or snow or something else that was ghastly inappropriate.

It had been raining steadily for three hours now, and not at a steady and familiar mizzle, but a proper downpour, so much so that the track was completely soaked, with puddles forming everywhere the track dipped down even a little bit. To say it was _not_ ideal driving weather would be something of an understatement. That was why they’d all gathered here in the shed they’d done up to serve as a pre-race meeting room in the first place.

“It’s really dangerous out there,” Scorpius Malfoy was saying, “I don’t think the charms on our cars are durable enough, at this point in the season, to handle us throwing our cars around the track at full speed and I, for one, don’t fancy dying at the tender age of seventeen.”

“If we cancel the race we can’t make it up later because you lot go off to school,” said Lucilla, turning away from the window to survey the room of serious-faced aurors, tense drivers and nervous sponsors, “Which means we end on a draw,” she smiled tightly, “The first time in ten years.”

Scorpius scowled, “I’m all for taking risks, but I’m _not_ suicidal.”

“Is that your father’s side speaking, then?” James said, a bit too snidely and Albus Potter hastily grabbed his friend before he could punch his brother.

“Mature James, real mature,” Margaret glared at him, “Scorpius _does_ have a point. The track’s completely soaked. Won’t say it’s suicidal, but it’s not exactly ideal race conditions either, no _, no_ , stop sneering, people are allowed to be worried, all right? We’re not all geniuses at calculating to a millionth the _exact_ amount we have to decelerate in order to make it through a corner without crashing, while going brutally fast and on this kind of track even the slightest mistake is going to be punishing.”

“Seems stupid to have to come this far and then hold back because Some People,” he looked pointedly in Scorpius’ direction, “Can’t do magic.”

“Because unlike Some People, I have a finely developed sense of self-preservation,” Scorpius said coolly, although Lucilla could tell that he was gripping his wand a little too hard.

“You mean –“

“Oh shut up, both of you,” she snapped, “Completely _childish_. And in case you missed the memo, _James,_ it’s not about the championship, it’s about the sport and the thrill of driving, but yes, by all means, make it all about winning and your _stupid_ school-boy vendettas.”

Margaret glanced at her and grinned. Of course _they’d_ invented the sport through a petty schoolgirl vendetta, but Margaret had so impressed her that day that she’d unwillingly admitted that maybe it was worth cultivating this ~~mud~~ muggleborn’s acquaintance. They’d been firm friends since that day, though of course being friends with Margaret had been a steep learning curve with more than one rocky patch in between. Things were much nicer, she’d discovered, once they stopped being a competition and they started being a matter of enjoyment and Margaret had played a huge part in that discovery, besting her in that race of theirs, because _damn_ if she hadn’t had fun simply throwing her car around the track that day.

“The Ministry’s removed nine-tenths of the soul of this whole thing with its million regulations and pre-race checks,” James retorted, “It’s all about forms and bureaucracy now, not the actual sport –“

“James is right,” said Delilah Blishwick, “There’s a lot more red tape than there needs to be. Besides, if people don’t think the charms on their cars are going to last them through the last race of the season they shouldn’t be racing in the first place.“

Several people murmured assent at that and Douglas Thomas-Finnigan went so far as to say “Hear hear!” out loud.

“I think we should call a vote," said Teddy, interrupting what would have almost certainly turned into a long and meaningless rant on the Ministry of Magic and its failure to understand the youth of this generation, “I think we all know the kind of dangers we’re walking into here, we’re not exactly blind or naïve, so instead of either of you choosing for us, why don’t we choose for ourselves?”

Margaret shrugged, “Lu?”

Lucilla would have liked to scream. Loudly. Something about sitting in small rooms with lots of people and rain all put together made her feel uncomfortable in her skin, like she needed to run as though running would help her forget whatever it was that made her feel this way. _Votes. Votes_. She wanted to shout. _It’s always about votes._ She’d  have liked to have gotten into her car then and there and driven away. Far away from the petty bickering and the rivalries that had found their way into that room.

A soft hand on her shoulder squeezed and she turned to see Margaret looking down at her with pity and understanding. _They’re children, they too will grow out of it_ , she seemed to say.

“Don’t care,” she said, “Call a vote.”

“Right,” said Teddy, running his hand through his hair, “Who votes in favour of going out in the rain?”

James Potter’s hand shot up immediately, followed by Teddy and Albus, grimacing apologetically at Scorpius. Lucilla glanced at Margaret before putting her hand up.

Nearly two thirds of the room raised their hands after that.

“Righto,” said Teddy, “Looks like we’re going out in the rain lads.”

“Going to be fun today,” said Margaret as she and Lucilla walked out on to the track together, “Lots of rain. Wild and excitable youths with petty scores to settle. Bloods out to win the championship title.”

“ _Children,”_ Lucilla rolled her eyes, “If only they taught them how to count at Hogwarts.”

Margaret laughed at that, “People used to say that about us once, Lu.”

“It’s the privilege of growing old,” she said, sliding into her car, “Older and wiser. We get to call them _kids_ now,” she looked up at her friend, “May the best of us win.”

“May the best of us win,” Margaret echoed, ruffling Lucilla’s hair before she put on her helmet, and ran away cackling wildly.

The first few laps passed relatively uneventfully, with only Alex Boothe bowing out of the race when his car kept slipping and sliding all over the track. By the fifth lap, however, Lucilla could tell that _something_ was wrong with her car.

She just didn’t know what.

“Shit,” she whispered to herself.

_Am I too old for this?_

She’d heard them all whispering, of course. _Has been_. _Should retire and let younger blood take over. Honestly she’s just making a fool of herself_.

And sometimes she wondered if they were right, if she _had_ grown old. She used to be a champion, once. Now she considered herself lucky if she finished among the top five. People invented charms much faster than they did in the early days and it had become such a problem that they’d had to introduce a rule making sure that people used only one set of charms for a whole year so as to level the playing field a bit. But the charms used were still non-standard across teams and drivers and now that she spent so much more time at work, trying to sort out the various diplomatic tangles that the English Ministry waltzed them into with unfailing regularity, she had hardly any time to sit down and genuinely experiment with magic to create better spells for tuning her engine and finetuning the steering.

It showed.

Keeping one hand on the wheel, she slipped her wand from the little holster built into the side of the car and whispered “ _Egritudo augurium_.”

She watched as all the hundreds of little spells she’d woven together while enchanting the engine of her car became visible. Thin fibres of white and blue and red and yellow, all perfectly intertwined and none of them showing any sign of decay, or worse still, accidental mixing.

Maybe she was too old for this.

She hastily dropped her wand on to her lap as Douglas attempted to pass her on the left and stepped on the accelerator, determined to fight this one out simply because Douglas made her feel like indiscriminately murdering people at the worst of times and annoyed her at the best of times. A pity, because his fathers really were nice people, even if he was a dickish teenage shit.

The body of her car rattled in an odd fashion and she contemplated letting Douglas pass her.

 _No_ , she thought, _one bad decision per race. This is it_.

* * *

Justin looked down at the notes in his hands and then at the crowd in front of him. Harry was there and Ginny. Ron and Hermione. All their children. From what he'd heard, they had all been there on the scene of the accident and they had all been unable to do anything to save Lucilla.

He knew all about that feeling. He thought he'd left it all the way back in 1998.

Zach had been there too. Zach had seen his own cousin die and remained unmoved by it while he, Justin, who'd met Lucilla a grand total of two times, both in passing at Ministry dos, had spent all night pacing up and down his study trying not to relive 1998.

He looked down at the notes in his hands again, pocketed them, cleared his throat and began to speak.

"A terrible tragedy occurred last evening. A tragedy that has shaken all of us, from Hogwarts to us down here in London and all across the world. Last evening, Lucilla Yaxley, an immensely talented employee of the Department of International Magical Cooperation – one whom I am assured, would have distinguished herself greatly if she were still here with us – died in a car crash at the race in Folkingham.  Lucilla was immensely intelligent and full of the fierce determination of youth. Put together, those are two very formidable forces and Lucilla was, indeed, a formidable young lady who would have undoubtedly been an excellent representative for Britain to the International Confederation of Wizards. 

"Her death, so young and at the prime of her life, grieves me personally; it grieves me that it should have been in this manner, in an accident that could have easily been prevented and it grieves me that we ignored the signs that preceded this most awful death. It is too late now to think of the could have beens and the what ifs. All we can do is look to the future and hope that such a tragedy never occurs again.

"I have been asked, many times, what I think about this sport and in the past, I have called it innovative and thrilling. Today, I must add the word _dangerous_ to this list, because the word thrilling does not stress enough, how fatal this sport can be. Over the years we have added innumerable rules and regulations, to ensure the safety of the drivers _and_ of everyone else involved: spectators and team personnel included. Despite these regulations, despite the fact that we now have a special Auror division established in the Department of Magical Games and Sports to constantly check that these regulations are being followed before each race, we have seen the number of accidents grow steadily rather than fall.

"My colleagues and I are in agreement that this cannot continue.  Death, at any time, is lamentable; death at the prime of one’s life is abhorrent and we have not come so far, this world of ours, to sacrifice our youth on the altar of cheap thrills.

"After dwelling upon this, along with my colleagues from the various departments of this Ministry, we have come to one conclusion. This sport cannot continue. Not in this form or in any other form. We have tried and failed to make this sport safer and now, I regret to announce, that I must ban it. Anyone who is found participating or in any way encouraging this sport, whether through sponsorships or by participating as spectators, will be arrested and tried before the Wizengamot and sentenced to six months in Azkaban. Repeat offenders will be given a life sentence -"

The rest of his speech was drowned out as everyone began talking excitedly amongst themselves.

“ _Bloody hell_ ,” breathed Albus Potter, “ _Bloody fucking hell_.”

“I’m surprised he went through with it,” said Rose, “I didn’t think he had it in him.”

“ _Please_ ,” Scorpius rolled his eyes, “It’s all political posturing. ‘f he cared he’d visit Alistair in St Mungo’s.”

“ _Scorpius_!”

“ _Rose_ ,” he said, mocking, “You know it as well as I do.”

“He _can’t_ do that,” Albus said, finally finding his voice and his ability to talk, “He _can’t_ ban it.”

“He’s the Minister for Magic, _Albus_ , he has every right. Besides he’s right. We shouldn’t be allowed to go on like this. At least half the accidents could have been prevented if we’d taken care, or followed the rules more carefully and you know it.”

“He’s going to have riots in Diagon Alley tomorrow,” said Scorpius, picking at the sleeves of his robes and then looking up and squinting at the dais where photographers were busy taking photos of the Minister, “20 per cent of their profits come from sponsorships,” he frowned, “Unless the Fawley-Yaxley family does something.”

“Besides the point, _Scorp_. _He can’t cancel the championship halfway through_.”

Rose smacked the two of them on the back of their heads, “Lucilla Yaxley died, in case you two missed it.”

Scorpius shrugged, “Never knew her personally. She was old hat anyway. Much too old for the racetrack.”

“I wouldn’t go so far,” Albus demurred, “I mean, she _did_ invent the sport. But don’t you think he’s overreacting? Lots more blokes died in muggle F1 and you don’t see them banning it.”

Rose opened her mouth to scold them both when James Sirius Potter appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

“Teddy’s called a meeting,” he said, without preamble, “All of us. Leaky Cauldron. Now. Hurry up.”

And with that he dived back into the crowd, presumably in search of others to shepherd towards the Leaky Cauldron.

“You have _got_ to be kidding me,” Rose muttered even as she followed Albus and Scorpius out on to the street, “You have _got_ to be _fucking_ kidding me.”

* * *

 “Well?” Teddy demanded, crossing his arms and glaring at the somber faces around the table, “Are you all going to give up because Minister Finch-Fletchley’s outlawed the sport?”

“Um,” said Rose, “Yes, duh.”

 “For _fuck’s sake_ –“ and everyone began arguing all at once, some fervently in favour of continuing and others strongly in favour of abiding by the Minister’s decree. At the head of the table, glass of firewhiskey in hand, Margaret sat quietly, watching them all argue.

“I think we should let Margaret decide,” said Albus, all of a sudden and the table fell quiet, “If anyone has the right to decide, it’s her. She knew Lucilla the best out of all of us. If anyone knows what Lucilla would have wanted, it's her.”

Margaret sighed and ran her fingers through her hair as everyone turned to look at her.

“I hate myself for saying this,” she said, “Lucilla’s dead. She’s not coming back, it’s true. Some of you probably think it’s in bad taste to continue racing, now that she’s dead. You’ve missed the point then,” she covered her face with both her hands and Teddy gripped her shoulder comfortingly.

“She had one saying,” she said eventually, “One bad decision. This is a bad decision, but,” she looked at all of them, “At least it’ll be one that honours Lucilla’s spirit. Not something that turns her into a symbol for tragedy. She wouldn't want that, I think," she closed her eyes as everyone at the table, barring Rose and Victoire, cheered, "She wouldn't want that at all."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _egritudo augurium_ is a spell-diagnostic charm invented for me by the lovely [EssayOfThoughts](http://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts)


	3. Pen Rhionydd

At first glance, Pen Rhionydd did not seem to bethe most difficult race of the season. The track was reasonably easy to navigate, with none of the tight sharp corners of Astolat or the dangerous grasses of _Féar Gortach_. Weaving through the Rhondda valleys of South Wales, it was, as far as technicalities went, a piece of cake. It was the sort of road that on a normal day, would have been quite pleasant to drive down.

However, what Pen Rhionydd lacked in technical difficulties, it made up for by being psychologically challenging. The sleepy, peaceful air that hung over the hamlet belied a much darker secret than most would believe this little village to possess. For centuries now, a pack of wild Gwyllgi and Gytrash hounds had roamed the wild open spaces of the valleys and the villagers, ever pragmatic and determined to make the best of a bad situation, had allowed them to rein supreme in the areas outside the village. They marked their boundaries by laying out an assortment of fresh meat, each Sunday night, for the hounds to feed on – to keep them away from their flocks and their children – but for the most part left them alone. _Heol y gwynt_ , the road-turned-track they used, lay outside the bounds of the village and so, when they raced at night, as they always did, the hounds would run alongside the cars. This had led Teddy Lupin, once, to observe rather bitterly, after crashing out at Pen Rhionydd – having been forced to perform a complicated steering manoeuvre to narrowly avoid colliding with an excitable hound – that these _untamed_ hounds seemed to share far too many " _instincts_ " with their more domesticated canine siblings.

While the hounds running after them, howling and barking at them frequently proved distracting, the _real_ danger from this Gwyllgi-Gytrash pack stemmed from the fierceness of their retribution should any of the drivers injure any of their kind. They were savage and unmerciful and would tear them apart viciously, which meant that the drivers had to be doubly careful while racing. If they valued their lives, that is.

Not a race for the prudent or the faint of heart. But then, you had to be a little foolish to be a racer in the Timed Death _grand prix._

Basil Besillstun, a wizard of considerable fortune and uncertain profession, was only too aware of this. It was he who had suggested, delicately, to Lucilla and Margaret, that their sponsors would be eternally grateful if they could grace their sleepy little village, with its not so hidden death trap, with their sport – _tiny little village, y’understand, not important enough for proper sports but so very scenic_. Lucilla and Margaret, being unusually canny witches for their age, had read between the lines and agreed – perhaps a bit too hastily – to have the last race of the season at Pen Rhionydd. The sport came first, above what most wix would have deemed wise – and what most muggles would have deemed plain bloody common sense.

It was this point that he was trying to impress upon his friend, Max Montgomery who was currently occupied in the rather unpleasant activity of trying to wear Besillstun’s impressive Afghan rug threadbare. Sulking by the mantelpiece, Harry Selwyn glowered at both of them, wishing that Teddy Lupin had had the courage to pay this visit to their sponsors instead of sacrificing him on the altar of necessity ( _I ent spending two hours listening to him moralize about the Ministry_ – _bloody hell Selwyn, you’d think you_ wanted _the fucking ban to work – piss off Lupin_ ).

“It’s too _sudden_ ,” Max said, finally, “They –“

“The Minister’s decision, as I understand it,” Besillstun picked delicately at an invisible piece of fluff on the sleeves of his robes, “Is a largely _moral_ one. Supported by the Head of the DMLE – I believe she drafted the legislation,” he smiled, blandly, his eyes sliding warningly to young Selwyn and then back to his friend, “They care greatly for our children – an admirable sentiment, wouldn’t you say?”

“Oh _certainly_ ,” Max replied, taking his friend’s warning, “However - ”

“I have every reason to believe Minister Finch-Fletchley and Mrs. Granger-Weasley capable of making decisions on the behalf of the nation, even hastily contrived ones. Your concern is _touching_ , Max, but I do believe our young friend here is of a rather more impatient bent of mind – yes, Harry?”

Harry blushed and mumbled an apology and then said, a little louder, “We _were_ rather hoping you’d be against the decision.”

“Against the decision?” the incredulity writ large upon Basil Besillstun’s features would have been comic if he did not seem so sincerely pained by Harry Selwyn’s words.

Max sneezed loudly at that and excused himself from behind a large silk handkerchief.

“I mean,” stuttered Harry, turning a deeper shade of red, “I thought – you know – since – Minister – _you know_.”

Besillstun raised his eyebrows.

“Spit it out,” Max advised the young man kindly, “We’re all ears.”

Harry’s eyes flitted quickly from Montgomery to Besillstun and he swallowed, “We had a meeting yesterday. We don’t like the ban,” he said, his chin tilting up defiantly, “We’ve decided to go ahead with the new season anyway. We were hoping you’d continue sponsoring us,” he smiled sheepishly, “Seeing as how you dislike the Minister.”

“On the contrary, my dear boy,” Besillstun said placidly, “I have invited him to spend the summer in our little village,” he rose from his armchair to pour himself a glass of sherry, “I believe Max, here, is better equipped to answer your question. I merely follow where he leads – Max has a much better head for figures.”

Max Montgomery’s lips twitched, “You do yourself an injustice, Basil,” he said, then to Harry: “Your enthusiasm is truly touching, but both Basil and I are law-abiding members of society, however,” he raised his hand, silencing Harry, “We might come to a compromise if you can tell us more clearly what it is you propose to do now in absence of the blessing of the law.”

Harry Selwyn left Besillstun’s mansion an hour later, hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his robes and whistling airily, convinced of his sharp intelligence and business acumen.  

Max Montgomery turned to his friend, his eyebrows raised, “Invited him to Pen Rhionydd?”

“Invited and been accepted, my dear boy – time we buried the hatchet and all that,” said Basil, serenely, “And besides it is time we introduced him to the delights of our humble village.”

“Such as pig poetry?”

“Such as pig poetry,” Basil agreed, “And the lovely scenery, of course.”

“Of course,” Max settled himself in an armchair opposite his friend and stretched out his legs, “What does Zacharias say about all of this? I was under the impression that he thought he had to protect Finch-Fletchley from our evil fustilarian ways.”

Basil smiled, “From what I understand, Zacharias has no idea that Finch-Fletchley has accepted the invitation.”

“Dear me, how exciting,” said Max, unruffled by this revelation, “Don’t tell me there’s _trouble_ in paradise?”

“My dear boy,” Basil’s smile widened, unpleasantly, “I _know_ there’s trouble.”

* * *

Although Pen Rhionydd seemed to be no more than a tiny little hamlet of very little import, in truth it was one of the most historical places in wizarding Britain, rivalled only by the village of Godric’s Hollow.

Of course, whether one thought one better than the other depended entirely on which house one had been sorted into at Hogwarts.

Where Godric’s Hollow had fluctuated in size over the centuries, sometimes thriving and now, mostly empty, Pen Rhionydd – or Helga’s Hollow, as it was popularly called – had stayed small, but steadily so. Few new people came to the village, yet equally, most of the families who lived there could draw their ancestries back no less than eight centuries.

Most families, that is, who lived in Upper Pen Rhionydd. Lower Pen Rhionydd was never spoken off, even by the milder families of Upper Pen, who were vaguely all for progress but mostly worried about the galleon weakening against the muggle pound. It was home to an assortment of muggleborns and other mixed families, some from mining families and some from decent backgrounds, but mostly all poor and all radical in their politics and consequently, the cause of some discomfort in Upper Pen Rhionydd whose residents were generally less preoccupied with goblin and house-elf rights than they were with gently (but persistently) complaining about the Ministry’s myriad failings and the state of the galleon.

Scattered along the middle, between these two silently warring factions, lived those who just wanted some peace and quiet, thank you very much – but if pressed would choose an abstract moral position over either of the extremes of these two ends of the villages.

In short, life in Pen Rhionydd had ossified into a compressed microcosm of all of British wizarding society.

Pig poetry, as Besillstun and Montgomery had put it, was the heart of life in this peculiarly provincial village, though not for agricultural reasons so much as an apocryphal story of heroism carefully crafted by the village over the centuries.

The tale, as it went, was that it was the last day of summer, the day they celebrated the beheading of St. John the Baptist and the turning out of the pigs for the winter, and unbeknownst to the people of the village, an army of Saxons was marching swiftly through the valley. It was while herding the last of the pigs out into the nearby woods that a young pig-herdess, not yet out of her teens, spotted one of the scouts they’d sent ahead. Acting swiftly and sensibly, she stunned and petrified him and then ran back to the village to rouse them to arms. They swiftly armed themselves and proceeded to ambush the invading army in the nearby forest, with the young pig-herdess witch leading the way.

And that was how the village of Pen Rhionydd and the Welsh kingdom of Glywysing was saved from annexation by the neighbouring kingdom of Gwent and their Saxon allies.

The pig-herdess, of course, was none other than Helga Hufflepuff and eventually, she would become one of Britain’s most talented witches _and_ warriors.

Whether this story was true or not, it had come to be accepted as unquestionable truth and had spurred the people of Pen Rhionydd to write elaborate ballads about pigs and the wisdom of letting one’s pigs out in time for winter and other such earnest exhortations to timeliness and responsibility. Any attempt to dissuade them from this inevitably resulted in them pointedly mentioning the Scottish families and their arguably even more arcane Burns days rituals ( _if they can celebrate a poet with speeches, we can celebrate a warrior with poetry_!).

It was to this festival that Besillstun had invited Justin Finch-Fletchley, being of the bent of mind that the Minister of Magic’s presence would serve to popularize this obscure celebration (elevating it over the North country’s celebration of Owain Glyndywr, who was a _muggle_ of all things to celebrate.)

Justin Finch-Fletchley had accepted, with some vague notion of attempting to make peace with the prejudiced pureblood side of Zacharias Smith’s family.

All of it coincided, incidentally, with the now-illegal race day at Pen Rhionydd.

It never rains but pours, the saying goes and on the 28th of August, 2026, Pen Rhionydd looked set for a storm of no mean size.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pen Rhionydd being Helga's Hollow is a headcanon of [ EssayOfThoughts ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts). I have taken some license with history and placed it in South Wales for Reasons.


	4. The anatomy of a failed relationship

Lisa Turpin strode purposefully through the offices of The Wixenomist, skillfully dodging the paper airplanes whizzing back and forth across the room. Trailing behind her, a rather harried Cholmondely protested ineffectually that Mr Smith was busy and not seeing anyone at all, not even Mr Finch-Fletchley.

Needless to say, she ignored him completely as she made her way to the office of Zacharias Smith.

“Smith,” she said curtly by way of greeting, firmly shutting the door in Cholmondely’s face.

Zacharias Smith looked up at her and then, very simply said, “no,” and went back to frowning over the latest report on the cauldron deficit in Greece.

“For fuck’s sake Smith, I haven’t said a damn thing.”

He sighed, “The last time you walked in to a room with that look on your face I got dragged into spying on a drug smuggling ring in the French Riviera, ended up being arrested in the Czech Republic,  _ruined_ my relationship with my father – who thought I was a drug smuggler in Colombia, by the way – and made everyone back here think I was some kind of frivolous  _arse_  making merry while they fought a bloody war so,” he said, “No. Please leave, I’m extremely busy.”

“Got you a fancy job at The Wixenomist though, didn’t it?” she sat down and put her feet up on his desk, “Anyway, this is right up your street. Finance and stuff.”

Smith sniffed indignantly at the casual use of the word  _stuff_ to encompass the complex and multilayered world of finance, but said nothing, in the vague hope that it would make Lisa go away.

It did not.

“Lucilla Yaxley,” she said, casually tossing some folders on to the desk, “We’ve been going through her papers down in the Department – regular procedure – apparently there was more afoot than just cars exploding on the track and she’d gotten on to it.”

“Wonderful.”

“Well go on,” said Lisa, nudging the folders towards him, “Open the files – I know you’re dying to.”

Zacharias glared at her and then reached for them.

“She had an excellent head for numbers,” Lisa continued, “As you can see she put it to good use going over the accounts of the various teams.”

“And found discrepancies, it would seem,” Zacharias replied, flipping idly through the pages and noting all the red on each page, “Seems pretty straightforward doesn’t it? Clear cut case of embezzlement. Find the person responsible for the whole thing and that’s it.”

“Yes dear, if it was  _that_ simple we would.”

“Well?” Zacharias eyed her suspiciously, “Stop tergiversating Turpin, I don’t have all day.”

“We all know you work for an erudite paper targeted at the intelligentsia of wizarding Britain, no need to rub it in my face – anyway, the gist of it is that everyone seems to think you’re the best man to investigate this matter. Since you know, you also write trashy sports commentary on the side and know literally everything there is to know about the teams. Best man to get in on the inside and find out who's embezzling the cash and _why_.”

“ _Journalism_ , Turpin, and have you forgotten the part where the whole biz is illegal now, therefore making any efforts of mine completely redundant?”

“I didn’t know you were in favour of the ban. Thought you were more sensible than that.”

“Justin’s quite sensible, thank you very much,” he said, bristling at the implied insult.

“Really? Is that what you really think, or your official line?”

He folded his hands and placed them on the table and looked her firmly in the eye, “What I really think.”

“That’s not what Creevey told me.”

“ _Fuck_  Creevey, it’s none of this business.”

She looked at him, pitying, “It’s not his fault. You two were quite vocal about your disagreement, he said – ‘sides its more or less common knowledge in the Ministry; Edie Blishwick said she could hear the two of you rowing all the way up on the third floor.”

“Fuck off, Turpin.”

“Language, Smith.”

 Zacharias snapped the folder shut and slid it across the table, “It’s none of his business. Or yours. Or anyone.”

“Everything’s my business, Zach, I’m MI7. Anyway – the point is, you’re perfectly suited to the job  _and_ there’s the little bit I haven’t told you about how Lucilla paid a visit to your godfather in London a few weeks before the crash.”

“And you think he has something to do with the embezzling?”

“Dodgy old codger isn’t he?” she asked him, “That’s what you said.”

“Fucking bastard – those were the words I used.”

“Whatevs. I just need to know that you’ll take this.”

“I told you,  _no._ ”

“It’s a great way to keep an eye on the kids – don’t sneer, I know you like to pretend you’re a heartless bitch but really, you're a great big softie for them – and get back at Besillstun for that whole biz with the Ministry inquiry without having to resort to poison pen letters.”

“I did not –“

“Stop  _quibbling_ and just agree for Merlin’s sake, I’m not leaving this office till you do.”

 Zacharias Smith crossed his arms and glared at her. Turpin mimicked his position and smirked at him.

“Get your feet off my desk,” he told her irritably, “Fine. Give me the files. I’ll do it – if there’s a magically binding contract which says your lot will back me up if I get into hot water.”

“Naïve,” she said, putting her feet down, “It’s a good thing I’m such a good friend or I wouldn’t have this for you,” she dug through her briefcase and slid him a piece of parchment, “You’re welcome.”

“No thanks,” he replied.

“Arse,” she tilted her head and regarded Smith, “How  _is_ Justin, by the way? Has he told you about how your lot down in Helga’s Hollow invited him for their eleven hundredth celebration of something utterly unpronounceable – the thing with the pigs?”

Zacharias snorted, amused at the idea of Justin willingly subjecting himself to hours of solemn poetry and song-singing concerning pigs and a young pig-herdess-turned-warrior-turned-school-founder, “Who told you that rubbish?”

“I only know ‘cos I overheard Gareth mentioning it to Flint in the canteen the other day. Hasn’t Justin told you?”

“You must be mistaken,” he said, his smile unwavering, “Justin wouldn’t.”

She got up, “I think you should ask him,” she looked over her shoulder at him and paused in the door way, suddenly serious, “I didn’t like the look on Gareth’s face.”

Zacharias frowned thoughtfully. A few moments later, the junior staff at the London office of The Wixenomist were treated to the sight of their normally languid Finance editor hotfooting it across the office floor, his robes billowing behind him. 

He caught up with Lisa Turpin just as she stepped into the elevator.

“What exactly did Gareth say?” he asked her.

Lisa looked up at him, carefully noting the tightness around his mouth and the way his faced looked almost pinched, if Zacharias Smith could ever be in enough emotional turmoil to look quite like that.

“Does it matter?” she asked him, gently, and reached up to straighten his tie, “Ask Justin, I’m sure he has his reasons.”

“Does he?” Zacharias asked the elevator doors, bitterly.

* * *

 “Cheer up Rosie,” said Scorpius, putting their ice-creams down on the table, “Turn that frown upside down and so on and so forth.”

“Do you _want_ me to hex you?”

“Children,” said Albus soothingly, sitting down on the other side of Rose, “I don’t know why you’re so worried about it anyway. It’s not like anyone’s going to know.”

“Mmm,” Scorpius pointed his spoon at Albus in agreement.

“I can’t believe it,” she said, incredulous, “It’s almost as though you’ve both forgotten that it was _my_ _mum_ who drafted that law.”

“So?” Albus shrugged, “Dad’s the head of the Auror department, you don’t see me getting my wand in a twist.”

“Rules, Albus! They’re –“

“Overrated,” he replied, looking in Scorpius’ direction and rolling his eyes.

“Anyway, I thought Gryffindors were all about pigheadedness and breaking the rules?” Scorpius asked her.

He hastily dodged out of the way as she attempted to whack him with her copy of _The Prophet_.

“No,” she replied, “That’s you _two_. Certain disregard for the rules. Snakes in the grass,” she said darkly.

“You mean _enterprising_ ,” Scorpius replied, “We break the rules. But subtly and for profit.”

“That’s probably her problem,” Albus grinned at his friend, “It’s not a moral stance, no room for dramatics.”

Rose glared at the two of them, now snickering into their ice-creams, evidently taken with their humour.

“Well don’t come running to me when you need to find a way to explain why your cars are banged up, or why someone’s been admitted to St Mungo’s with their skulls cracked wide open,” she said, stabbing her spoon viciously into her ice cream, “You’ll be able to handle that, with your _subtlety_ and _enterprising_ -ness.”

The boys protested loudly at this and made her promise to join them, Scorpius going so far as to buy her another ice-cream by way of an apology and Albus insisting on carrying all her purchases for her the rest of the day. Rose, a true credit to her mother, refused to be bullied into agreeing to put her future at risk. A lesser being would have certainly given way under all the effusive charm being directed at Rose.

Even Hermione Granger-Weasley, Rose reflected, would have given way under such pressure. Which, judging by the stories told at Christmastime when everyone was pleasantly sloshed, she had done.

“Anyway,” said Albus, some time later, while they were at Flourish and Blotts, “Did y’hear? Harry Selwyn managed to talk Besillstun and Montgomery into continuing funding us. ‘pparently Donovan gave him what for for not pulling his weight in the bargaining.”

“Harry’s a twit,” said Rose, “No, that’s not going to help you,” she prised a book on Thaumaturgy from Scorpius’ hands and put it back on the shelf, “What did she and Teddy expect? Intelligence? Not from Harry fucking Selwyn.”

“Nepotism?” Scorpius took the book back out again and hastily slipped it into the folds his robes before Rose could take it away from him, “Family discounts? Mollycoddling?”

“Well anyway,” Albus interrupted Scorpius, “The point is, we have Funds and literally _everyone’s_ going to be in on the action, so you can’t abandon us – tell her Malfoy.”

“You can’t abandon us Weasel,” Scorpius said gravely, though his grey eyes twinkled wickedly, “You know we’d all fail miserably without you.”

“Ha,” she replied and strode away purposefully in the direction of the cashier.

“What if she _doesn’t_ join us?” Albus asked Scorpius, absentmindedly attempting to wrangle the book from the folds of Scorpius’ robes.

“Oi, keep your hands to yourself,” Scorpius batted Albus’ hands away. He slid the book out and handed it to Albus, “I don’t think it’s of much use and there’s too much that could go wrong – not worth the risk. Should have seen Harry’s face when he walked into the Cauldron though. Like a kneazle that’d found the bloody cream. Until Meg took him down, that is.”

“I’ll decide for myself thanks,” Albus frowned over the contents of the book, “Anyway you haven’t answered my question.”

“Dunno,” he ran his hand through his hair, “Her mum _did_ draft the bill – wouldn’t look good for Rose to get caught and Hugo won’t listen if he sees her joining us.”

“We can’t race without her though – not unless we want to die.”

“Timed Death, Al,” Scorpius said drily, “Like a duel to the death, but with cars. Or have you forgotten what with your dad and his people babysitting us each week?”

Albus punched his friend’s shoulder, “Wanker.”

“Please,” Scorpius slid into the queue at the cashier, “You’d flounder miserably without me. Anyway,” he lowered his voice, “She’ll come around.”

“You think so?”

“Her mothering instinct’ll kick in,” he replied, “Well, that and her red hair.”

“And her abiding hatred of Harry Selwyn?”

“And that.”

“And if not?”

“Then we go ahead with plan B.”

Unaware of the things being planned behind her back, Rose was waiting outside the shop, quietly turning over the pros and cons of going back on to the circuits as one of their mechanics. Victoire was going to race, even though she remained adamantly against the whole business. So was Lucy. Foolishly brave and determined to win.

 _And all headed straight for the grave_ , the glum little voice in her head added.

 _Of course,_ a traitorous little voice piped up, _you could prevent that_. _If, you know, you went with them._

Rose sighed.

“We’ve been thinking –“ Scorpius announced, taking her by her elbow, “That –“

“I’ll do it,” said Rose.

“What?”

“I’ll do it. I’ll join you lot. You better not fucking let me get thrown into Azkaban, though.”

Scorpius and Albus looked at each other and beamed.

“How would you like to make a second trip to Fortescue’s, cousin dearest?” Albus asked her, slipping his arm through hers.

Rose punched him in his solar plexus and strode away, grimly satisfied at him standing in the middle of Diagon Alley, doubled over in pain.

* * *

In an apartment with modest but proportions, Victoire Weasley sat on a sofa, painting her toe-nails, Teddy Lupin watching her with an air of discontentment firmly hanging about him.

“If you didn’t _want_ to you should have just said,” he said eventually.

“Who said I don’t want to?”

“You’re not happy.”

“Ah yes, six months in Azkaban. Sorry for not crowing in delight at the thought of it.”

“That’s why _if you didn’t want to_ you should have _bloody well said_.”

Victoire looked up at her boyfriend, “Would you have listened?”

Teddy considered this. “No,” he admitted, “Probably not.”

She shrugged and went back to painting her nails.

“You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.”

“And let you win all the trophies?” she screwed the bottle shut and put it on the glass table, “Thanks, but no thanks. Someone’s got to have standards on behalf of everyone. I'm ' _memorializing Lucilla_ ', as you all put it. I just hope you know what you’re going to tell Uncle Harry and all the papers when this collapses in on itself.”

“For fuck’s sake –“

“I like my job, Edward Remus Lupin,” she said, getting up, “I won’t hesitate if it comes to a choice between you and your friends and your _idiotic_ schemes and my job.”

“Which would you choose?” he asked her, curious.

“My job,” she flashed a smile at him, the one that made him feel wobbly at the bottom of his spine and left most people certain they were about to be murdered very thoroughly.

“Bloody snakes,” he muttered, "Oi," he yelled, "What do you expect me to do about that?"

"I don't know, Lupin," her voice came drifting back to him from the bedroom, "Why don't you use your brains and think it through for yourself - how's that for a start?"

Teddy Lupin slouched lower on the couch. Victoire would almost certainly beat him this season and be an utter bitch about it and sometimes he wondered why he fancied her in the first place.

She strode out of the bedroom, dressed in a manner that made his spine do the wobbly thing all over again and Teddy remembered that this was why. She scared the living daylights out of him and, also, Rita Skeeter (the only other people who'd managed that were Hermione Granger-Weasley and Mafalda Prewett and they were...exceptional women.)

Victoire lightly tapped his head, "You have to use your head, Edward Remus Lupin, if you want to live and get ahead," she said fondly, "Not that thing between your legs."

Teddy whimpered.

* * *

On the other side of London, in a house that was considerably larger, a very different sort of domestic scene was taking place. Or perhaps not taking place, since both inhabitants were eating their dinner in stony silence. They had already covered their disagreements over the Ministry’s latest fiscal policy, the wisdom (or unwisdom) of the Head of the DIMC’s decision to place restrictions on cauldron exports to Greece, whether or not Celestina Warbeck was too old to be performing and their respective working hours ( _you need to spend more time at home - I like that, you're the one sitting in the office till three in the blood morning - I'm sorry for trying to keep the paper fucking running - and I'm sorry you don't think running the fucking country isn't important enough_ ) and were now currently occupied in examining the extraordinarily dull paintings on the walls.

“The paint is peeling,” Zacharias observed, after a while.

Justin Finch-Fletchley grunted and scowled at his food.

“We should make an appointment with the painters,” said Zacharias, a few minutes later.

“Can’t have them fuck up the paint job.”

“They do heritage paint lines now.”

Justin _hmmm_ ed non-comittally  and continued pushing his food from one side of his plate to the other.

“I’ll make an appointment for the weekend then,” said Zacharias, once it was clear that Justin had no particular feelings on the subject of heritage paint lines.

“Feel free,” Justin replied and then lapsed back into silence.

Of all the things he had been warned about in marrying his friend turned boyfriend, the fact that everyday silences ceased being comfortable and morphed into long interstices of discomfort was not one of them. Time stretched on infinitely past 9 PM – when Michal and St John retired to bed (kicking and screaming, in the latter's case) – twisting out of shape until sometimes, Zacharias almost felt he’d been trapped in an absurdist play.

Not that they managed to come home before 9 PM on most days anyway - he tried, at least, which is more than he could say for Justin.

Zacharias watched the clock mark five minutes before he broke the silence. “Met Lisa Turpin today,” he said.

“How is she?” Justin asked, finally rousing himself from his sulk-slash-stupor to look vaguely interested.

“Terrifying,” he replied.

Justin snorted, “You mean in good health.”

“If you have to call it that,” said Zacharias, “She asked after you.”

“And you told her I was fine.”

“Of course,” he replied, and then continued, far too nonchalantly, “She also said you’d been invited to Pen Rhionnyd by Besillstun and accepted it.”

He had to admire the cool smoothness with which Justin responded.

“’Bout time we buried that hatchet, don’t you think?”

 “If by hatchet you mean that offensive postcard insinuating you were lining your pockets with funds from the investigation that he ‘accidentally’ sent to _The Sol_ –,” Zacharias paused in exasperation, “I’m not entirely sure you know how this works.”

“He extended an olive branch, I saw no reason to demur.”

“Justin he’s an _arse_.”

“He’s your _godfather_ – anyway we’re _both_ going, so if you’re so bloody concerned, you can play guard-dog all you like but Merlin, Zach, I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“When were you planning to tell me?”

Justin laughed incredulously, “ _Listen_ to yourself Zach. I would have told you when I was certain you weren’t going to react as though I’m a _baby_ who needs to be _protected_ from the big bad world outside – which clearly, you know, you’re doing it right now.”

Zacharias sighed, “You didn’t have to hear all the things they said about you to me.”

“No,” Justin agreed, “I didn’t. But they seem to be willing to make peace and it’s been ten _years_ – it’s about time we put this all behind us.”

“I don’t trust them,” said Zacharias bluntly, “And neither should you.”

“Well I’m sorry you’ve spent so much time in your profession you can’t actually _trust_ people, but it’s hardly _my_ problem. Unlike you I _do_ believe people have good in them, y’know, the reason the wizarding bloody world voted me in.”

 “After a campaign that Mafalda and I ran for you,” Zacharias replied, drily, “But it’s nice to see how you believe your own propaganda.”

The china plate smashed into pieces on the wall behind Zacharias’ head.

“I’m sorry,” said Justin, a few moments later, the two spots of colour fading from his cheeks, “I shouldn’t have –“

Zacharias breathed out, “It’s fine – I don’t - I’m sorry – _worried_ – I don’t trust them.”

Justin came around to the other side of the table and knelt down next to him, “It’ll be fine,” he said, in that earnest manner of his that made Zacharias almost believe that the world was as good as Justin believed it was, “I’ll be careful and listen to everything you say,” he promised, “But let’s try to make peace with them, yeah?”

They’d said all kinds of things when he’d told them he was planning on marrying Justin Finch-Fletchley. His aunt was still convinced that it was a phase he would grow out of and every year, around February, would write him letters telling him of such-and-such's lovely daughter (inevitably some fifteen years his junior) who would make him a lovely _pureblood_ wife. His mother’s nose wrinkled in distaste at every mention of Justin’s name and his godfather, Basil Besillstun, had bluntly told him he was cutting him completely out of his will (not that he’d particularly cared; that announcement had left him feeling quite satisfied with himself).  His uncles had been considerably less polite and had made plenty of snide remarks about _pigs_ and _mud_ in his presence.

Not including, of course, his infamous “missing” Death Eater uncle who’d told him, plain and simple, that he was disgracing his family by running with mudbloods and allowing them to fuck him into his bed - to which he'd calmly replied that he was the one who did the fucking, thank you very much.

But, with Justin’s doe eyes earnestly pleading with him, he could almost bring himself to believe that this marked a change of heart in his family, despite Lisa Turpin’s warnings. Everything would be fine. Everything would be fine even though he’d be following the Timed Death crowd across Britain, despite the ban, instituted by his husband - who had _strong_ feelings about the matter and thought he was a callous bastard for not feeling the death of his cousin more strongly.

It was not going to be fine in the least bit, but Justin's doe eyes were very,  _very_ persuasive.

Justin Finch-Fletchley was pleasantly surprised at the force with which his husband kissed him.


	5. The Old Hell Road, Yorkshire

Once upon a time – well, last year, but that was beside the point – Rose Weasley used to be a Head Girl, which meant responsibility with a capital R. Rose Weasley was a responsible person, there wasn’t a single person who’d ever brushed shoulders with her who would claim otherwise.  Neville Longbottom had told her as much when he made her Head Girl. _There isn’t a single person I can think of better suited to the task of keeping four hundred unruly, pubescent teenage wix in line_ , he’d said, _And stick by the rules_. Her mother was the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Her father was Deputy Head of the Auror Division. She was _Head Girl_. She was, to all extents and purposes, responsibility embodied.

Rose Weasley was also now a lawbreaker and the very thought was making her break out in hives.

“Hurry up Weasel,” Scorpius’ voice, impatient, drifted back up to her.

She sighed and broke into a light jog.

The _Old Hell Road_ was a strange choice for the first race of the season. It was not an easy race, but for those who wanted to start the season with a bang, it suited them perfectly. The track had seemed fairly normal, if a little damp at first, though it had one particular corner that was the literal devil to drive around. They learnt soon enough that there was a reason the muggles called it _The Old Hell Road_ and it had nothing to do with its hellish twists and turns. Even muggles, it seemed, could sense old dark magic and the rising dead on All Souls Night, enough to churn out all kinds of ghoulish tales about what the dead could and would do if you were stupid enough to go near them.

As far as Rose was concerned the “wild dead” were mostly harmless. Cold, and liable to mess with the charms on engines if they ended up rising right where the cars were passing and occasionally interfering and troublesome, but they were mostly harmless. The muggles were good for many things, factually accurate information about the magical was _not_ one of those things.

Everyone else just seemed to like the muggle tales much more than good sense.

“All ready?” James asked them, as they gathered around the portkey – probably illegally procured, but the less questions asked the better.

Ten faces, some solemn, some grim, nodded at him and then the grimy streets of Knockturn Alley and London were falling away and then they were standing in a bleak, deserted valley in Yorkshire, a light fog drifting slowly along the ground.

The air was colder here – the _ground_ was cold, thought Rose – despite being further south, and although it should have been a pleasant evening, everyone was busy casting warming charms on their robes. No one said it out loud but Rose could feel them all thinking it and she sighed internally. No amount of logic had ever managed to quite erase those lurid muggle tales from their heads and so they all marched on in a stiff, uncomfortable silence now.  

Scorpius shivered besides her as they walked towards the pinpoints of lights in the distance, where Teddy and the rest of them would have charmed into place.

“Unromantic,” said Scorpius, bumping her shoulder gently, “Everyone’s pissing themselves and here you are, about as moved as a stuffed fish.”

Rose snorted derisively, “I’m more worried about mum than I am about some silly ghosts.”

“The wild dead,” Scorpius corrected her, “You’re a dead bore.”

“I’m sorry I’m so full of good sense.”

Scorpius shook his head sadly at her and proceeded to skip ahead, making Albus shriek and leap three feet in the air by sticking his cold hands on the back of Albus’ neck without warning. Rose watched in fond amusement as Albus gave chase to him, Scorpius’ clear laughter faintly audible over the growing sound of engines slowly warming up, faint but definite, in the distance.

“Terrible isn’t it?” said a melancholy voice on her right.

Rose yelped and Lorcan Scamander slowly shifted into view on her right hand side, grinning much too gleefully for her taste.

“Don’t do that,” she said sharply, “We’ve been over this before Lorcan.”

“I have to test your reflexes,” he replied solemnly, “Or they’ll rot away.”

“No they won’t – that’s,” Rose sighed. Arguing with Lorcan was always an uphill task. She settled for changing the subject instead. “Have you fixed Lysander’s car, then?” 

“Haven’t I just,” he said, looking inordinately proud of himself, “They won’t know what’s hit them when he takes to the track.”

This did not sound very safe, not that _any_ of the Scamander twins’ ideas were safe, but Rose took it in her stride, “Really?”

“It took some time to get the cooling charms right, without it exploding into bits, but it all worked in the end,” he replied, “Which is something. Liz thought it would never work. Liz is an idiot.”

“Oh?” said Rose, a vague sense of foreboding sinking over her.

“Thaumaturgy,” said Lorcan, proudly, “You may think its rubbish, but if you mix it with aero-engines its _smashing_.”

 “Right. Um,” Rose paused, trying to word her next question tactfully, “Forgive me for asking, but is it safe?”

“Safe?” Lorcan seemed nearly offended at the thought, “Of course it isn’t safe. But it is exciting.”

Sometimes Rose wondered why she even bothered with trying to understand how the Scamander twins thought.

They seemed fond enough of that amorphous abstract entity, ‘the driving experience’, in theory and frequently waxed eloquent about the ‘philosophy of driving’, but in practice – and on the track – they tended towards the pyrotechnical.  Their last automotive experiment had resulted in an explosion which had left their car – fondly nicknamed _Lucifer_ – splattered all over the track. Lysander, happily seated in the midst of the burning wreckage, had delightedly told them all that the ‘experiment was a success’.

Everyone, understandably, had been less than pleased with this turn of events, but then, technically speaking, no rules had been broken and the Scamander twins went scot-free.

Lorcan disappeared when they reached the tracks, presumably to coo over whatever latest satanic contraption he’d managed to cook up, leaving Rose to examine the track conditions on her own. Damp, but not damp enough to be worrying. Teddy and the others had clearly been busy the whole day. The track – or at least, the start of the track – had been transformed from a muddy country road to a broad, smooth surface and it was brightly lit, every blade of grass standing out in the bright lights. This way no one would be able to complain about poor visibility, Rose thought, with some satisfaction.

It was amazing, sometimes, the kind of excuses people could come up with to justify their terrible driving skills.

It was equally amazing, she thought, that despite all their precautions and efforts at secrecy, they had permitted a _journalist_ to attend the race.

She stalked towards the stands in search of Teddy, glaring impressively at the tall familiar figure armed with a notepad, standing at the edge of the track and talking with Harry Selwyn who looked about as comfortable as a teenager looks when cornered by a relative in the presence of his friends.

“What’s he doing here?” she said, when she’d found Teddy.

He shrugged, “It’s a free country.”

“Are you _mad_?” she demanded, “He’s a _journalist_.”

“So’m I,” Teddy replied, nettled by the implied insult, “It’s a respectable occupation!”

“You’re not pals with _every goddamn gossip journalist_ in England _or_ married to the Minister for Magic!”

“So the tradition continues,” someone murmured, just behind her, “Your parents would be proud.”

Zacharias Smith smiled sweetly at her when she turned around. Rose looked appealingly at Teddy, willing him to send the man away, but Teddy steadfastly refused to meet her eye.

“Someone has to be cautious,” she told Zacharias Smith, glaring at Teddy all the while.

“Someone ought to learn manners,” Smith replied smoothly, “Or else factcheck before making blithe assumptions. Lupin knows the importance of that, doesn’t he?”

Teddy turned a bright shade of red, the tongue-lashing he’d received from Smith when he’d blithely asserted that Germany was the source of all their Persephone Butterfly Silk imports in a freelance article he’d done for The Wixenomist still far too vivid in his mind.

Rose crossed her arms and turned on him, even as Teddy plucked at her elbow warningly, “So why are you here?”

“ _Rose_ ,” hissed Teddy.

“It’s a public event isn’t it?” he replied, “Well then.”

Hermione Granger-Weasley, when Rose was eight, had once called Zacharias Smith a vexatious prat, among other things, considered unsuitable for her hearing – she’d been sent out of the room, when her mother had set in on him, but had carefully snuck back to listen in at the door because Hermione Granger-Weasley was always at her most entertaining at her most vicious – which Rose had naturally documented with careful precision for further investigation.  At the time, Rose had thought her mother prone to exaggeration, even though Lucilla assured her that it was not, but now, with him smiling superciliously down at her, Rose felt a strong urge to throw all of these names at him in quick succession.

“Why are you here?” she repeated.

“I am not,” he replied, “In the habit of justifying myself to _teenagers_.”

Rose’s chin jutted out mulishly.

“ _Rose_ ,” Teddy hissed in her ear, before she could put her foot in it further, “ _Shut up_. He’s here on private business.”

“I don’t see why he has to be so cagey about it,” she replied, scowling at Smith.

Teddy glared at her, “Nerves,” he told Zacharias Smith, smiling nervously, “Always a problem before the races,” and with that he unceremoniously hustled her away.

“He’s Besillstun’s godson,” he told her, once they were out of earshot, “No, shut up, I don’t care if they fought over his marriage ages ago. Be polite.” He turned on his heel and departed, no doubt to soothe any ruffled feathers.

She stuck her tongue out at his retreating figure and then sauntered over to the pits where Albus was busy looking over his car.

“ _\- Insane_ ,” Scorpius’ usually cool and slightly wry voice was raised in an uncharacteristic display of emotion, “Go ahead and _ruin_ your life, I won’t stop you –“

“Thanks –“

Rose sidled around and peered through the opening. Albus was grinning that devil-may-care grin of his, Scorpius looked as though he would like very much to strangle that expression off his face.

“ _I don’t care if you have to stay awake_ ,” he was yelling, his face turning redder by the second, “ _You don’t throw literally everything you’ve worked for for a five minute high_.”

“Stop being so _dramatic_ about everything –“

“So it’s _dramatic_ , is it, _to worry about your health_?”

“It’s not like I’m a junkie –“

“Then w –“

“Piss _off_ –“

“Fine –“

“ _Fine_.”

Scorpius stalked out of the shelter and away without spotting her.

Rose sighed, counted to five and then joined Albus. Better to pretend she’d heard nothing than get involved in one of their fights, or worse still, discover something new to worry about where Albus was concerned.

“Lorcan’s mental,” she said, without preamble, “Need any help?”

He grunted and then shut the bonnet, “Scamander’s always been a bit knocked in the head,” he said, “Everything seems to be in order.”

“Go on then,” she said.

Albus reached over and turned the key in the ignition and the engine revved into life.

“Sounds good to me,” said Rose, after listening carefully for five minutes.

Albus relaxed.

“I’m going to win,” he told her, “I feel it.”

Rose rolled her eyes. There was only so much superstition she could take at one go.

“If you don’t try any of your James Bond stunts,” she replied, “Then yes.”

He grinned at her, “Lighten up, Weasel.”

 _I would_ , she thought, _if I wasn’t so sure you worship the ground Teddy and James walk on_.

“I’ll get out on the track,” she said instead.

* * *

The track was going to be very different this year around. She had not been made privy to the details, but the long and short of it was that Teddy and James had quarreled worse than usual and were no longer on speaking terms (Teddy was sulking, James refused to apologize) and Teddy and Maggie Donovan would not be racing this time round. Something, she had heard, about giving everyone a fair chance and not having one set of people dominate the track.

Thinking about these things made her head hurt almost as much as it made family dinners an awkward affair, especially now that Uncle Harry and mum and dad were effectively The Enemy and therefore, could not be brought in to intervene. Not without them all getting into trouble for breaking the law, or for that matter, getting their parents into trouble on their behalf.

In lieu of thinking about how she’d somehow achieved adult maturity before _most_ of the people on the track – it was obvious Maggie Donovan was _unhappy_ , but they were all such _selfish prats_ – Rose started the engine of the safety car and waited for Dominique to spark them off for the warm-up lap.

This was easier said than done. There was one false start, because Douglas Finnigan-Thomas jump started his car, and then another false start because Lysander Scamander had managed to set two-thirds of the track on fire with his brand-new thaumaturgically modified aero-engines, in a hideous WWI era car he called “the Brutus”. This was followed by a long argument between James Sirius Potter, Victoire Weasley and Teddy Lupin over whether or not this constituted cheating.

(“It’s not against the rules,” Lysander insisted stubbornly.

“The whole bloody track’s unusable,” James declared, “I can’t get past this wanker if everything’s on fire –“

“It’s unfair,” Victoire shrieked, “It’s _cheating_.”

“You’re one to talk,” said Teddy, rounding on Victoire, “Your car’s _neon_ and it _glows_ -“

“And changes colour,” James cried, momentarily distracted from the case at hand, “Gives everyone headaches.”

“Can we stay on topic?” said Scorpius sharply, “I don’t intend to race with half the track on fire. It’s not safe -”

“Or what, Malfoy?” Lorcan replied, “You’ll tell your father? Lighten up. Live a little.”

And from there it had degenerated into an out and out brawl with punches and hexes being thrown with equal and indiscriminate fervour.)

Eventually Teddy had emerged from the melee, with Lysander collared in one hand and Scorpius in the other. Twenty minutes later, with all the various ruffled feathers soothed and Lysander’s car fixed, albeit with a lot of grumbling after he was told, in no uncertain terms, to fix his car or else face disqualification, they were lined up once again on the track and ready to go. Rose started the engine of her car and looked into the rear view mirror. Just in case.

The track was not on fire, though Lysander was still wreathed in flames. There was only so much fire, it seemed, that the Scamander twins were willing to surrender in the name of good sense and safety.

Dominique raised her wand and was then enveloped in a shower of red sparks, followed by yellow and then green.

Rose put her car into gear and set them off at a comfortable pace.

It was not as though she couldn’t race. Merlin knew Hugo had tried to bully her into it more than once, in an attempt to live vicariously through his older sister. He’d tried everything from accusing her of being a sissy about speed – _ridiculous_ – to not actually knowing her cars – _insulting_ and Ron had grounded her for a whole week after she’d hexed his front teeth and turned them into walrus tusks – but none of it had worked. Racing simply just wasn’t in her blood in the same way it was in her cousins’, or even her brother’s blood.

It was not even that she was scared. There were plenty of rumours about the kind of dark magic that had been done to turn the Old Hell Road into what it was. The stories were never consistent – some of them mentioned plague victims who had died restless in spirit and in pain, others spoke of an ancient massacre that had taken place on this spot – and it was that lack of consistency which led her to discredit the tales altogether. A more timorous wix would have been worried about the kind of dark magic that had been used, but Rose was pragmatic and fancied that how-many-ever centuries had passed between, all of this was far less dangerous than popular imagination had rendered it – and this she held true of all the other tracks. All that was required was a cool head and an ability to think swiftly and logically. These silly tales only served to befuddle the mind and it never ceased to amaze her that despite the fact that they had used these tracks before without harm, the others still clung to the fear of the wild dead rising from their graves.

(Never mind that they had never raced so late in the night on the Old Hell Road before.)

To tell the truth, Rose was less interested in the racing side of things than she was – well – than she was in _betting_. Or well, maybe not betting, because she never actually put _money_ on any of her bets, so perhaps _calculating probabilities_ was a better term.

She _did_ like probabilities.

For example, on a track like this, Maggie Donovan would normally be at the head of the line. Now that she was gone, Rose was torn between Scorpius, Albus and Victoire. Scorpius had a kind of technical precision about his driving that everyone else lacked, coupled with a fierce and terrifying determination that only being in Slytherin could give people. On the other hand, Albus had _flair_ and an instinctive knack for corners. A bit like his dad on a broomstick, but with cars. Victoire. Well she was Victoire and she always got her way. She was at least half the reason why Teddy Lupin and Maggie Donovan weren’t racing, even if Teddy insisted that it was James who was an ungrateful turncoat – but then Teddy wasn’t shagging James and Victoire could be overwhelming when she wanted to.

Victoire Weasley was something of a force of nature.

She turned the last corner, still unsatisfied with all her careful calculations. She had to pick _one_ of them though, and that was proving to be a problem.

With one hand on the steering wheel, guiding the car down the final stretch, she took her wand out from the holster on her left and tapped the steering wheel, setting off the triggered charm that would turn the flames in the centre of their steering wheels from red to green.

Engines revved aggressively behind her and despite herself, Rose grinned.

* * *

The first few laps passed relatively uneventfully, as the drivers settled into the track and figured out its whimsicalities – the damp patches that made awkward corners and their treacherous grassy strips even more dangerous with the light mist drifting across the ground. By the fifth lap, James had begun to edge up on Victoire Weasley and the two were locked in a tight battle for the third place,  their cars weaving unevenly across the track as James slid from one side to the other as he attempted to overtake her and Victoire responding by throwing the tail of her car out to keep James from getting in front.  

At the head of the line, Scorpius and Albus were locked in a fierce battle for the first place. For years now, the circuit had been dominated by the same names over and over again: _Maggie Donovan, Teddy Lupin, Lucilla Yaxley, Maggie, Maggie, Teddy,_ Maggie – but this, this was _their_ year. They may have raced for the same team, under Teddy’s guidance, but on the track all that mattered was the trophy and the chequered flag at the end of the line. No friendships, no team spirit, nothing.

Scorpius sharply turned his wheel and his car slid around the corner, its nose nearly scraping Albus’ rear wheel. He slammed his foot down, accelerating hard as they both straightened out, trying to edge past Albus on the outside. This was his year. The others had mercurial genius and the ability to stare death in the face and remain unflinching, but Scorpius, Scorpius had the genius, the precision and more importantly, sheer ambition to do it.

When they were eleven, Albus Potter had been sorted into Slytherin and at last it seemed things were looking up for Slytherin house. _It’s always the Potters_ , his dad had once confessed in a bitter and drunken rant, and Scorpius had felt a wave of that same bitterness as his house cheered Albus Potter on but maintained a cold silence when it was his turn to be sorted. His grandfather’s crimes and the mark on his father’s arm cast a long shadow over him and he found himself an outsider in Slytherin, now eager to disown its tarnished past and all reminders of that past.

And yet, despite his surname, despite everything, Albus was just as out of place as Scorpius was and somehow, they had bonded that night, eight years ago.

Scorpius knew all too well just how much had changed because against all the odds, he and Albus Potter had become the best of friends – perhaps because they were the only people who treated each other as more than just their names. He’d never been allowed to forget. Not when shop-owners scraped and bowed around him when Albus was there, with his charming smile, and then turned cold when he visited them on their own. Polite, yes, but not friendly.

The track though, the track was _his_.

They were bowling down a long straight, approaching the sixth corner, _the Devil’s Nose_ – a tight, triangular hairpin followed by a chicane – when the lights on the track went out.

Scorpius flicked his headlights on and frowned into his rearview mirror. Some way behind him he could see the beams of James’ headlights and the bright colours of Victoire’s (glow in the dark, naturally) car, dimly flickering through what seemed like an unnaturally dark fog, but no track lights.

“Teddy,” he said urgently into their charmed headpiece, “Teddy, what the fuck is happening with the lights?”

There was a loud screeching noise from behind his car and then a loud thud and Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy found himself staring straight into the eyes of a creature he'd only seen in his books before - a  _Sluagh_.

The creature snarled, baring a long row of horrible pointed teeth, and then began hammering on the glass of his windshield using its twisted claws.

Scorpius hastily scrabbled for his wand holster and then swore as the screen began to shatter despite the reinforcing charms he’d put on them.

“Get off the track you, _arse_ ,” Albus’ voice bellowed in his ear.

Scorpius pursed his lips, tapped the brakes with his left foot and began the gear change for the corner.

“ _Scorpius you fuck_ –“

He’d done this before, lying on his bed at night. For three weeks now. The movements, the gear changes, the precise amount he’d have to tap the brake pedal, the moment the throttle would have to kick in. He could do this driving blind.

Like he was right now.

Scorpius drew his wand and silently cast a _Reparo,_ followed by a quick muttered _Valentiorem_.

The creature shrieked angrily, but it might have been pin-drop silence in the car for all that Scorpius responded to it, his brow furrowed in concentration as he let his car drift across, ready for the long turn into _The Devil’s Nose_.

He spun his wheel around, the _Sluagh_ rolling to the other side of the screen and then back as the car rounded the first corner. The screen shivered under the blow of its claw as Scorpius slammed his right foot down as hard as he could, flicking his headlights on and off as a warning to Albus, wherever he was in the dark.

With his free hand, Scorpius hastily cast another reinforcing charm and then began counting down in the dark.

_Sixty_

_Fifty_

_Forty_

_Thirty_

_Twenty_

_Ten_

_Five_

Scorpius took a deep breath in and spun the wheel sharply to the left.

Lying on his bed at home, Scorpius had done this with ten metres to spare. Enough to make the turn as precise as possible, enough to keep it safe.

The rear end of his car slid out and he drifted sharply around the corner. The _Sluagh_ rolled off to the left and smashed into his window and Scorpius spun his wheel sharply the other way, accelerating hard as the car straightened out.

Albus had gained and pulled further away from Scorpius while he was battling the _Sluagh_ , it seemed (the thing was now fruitlessly batting its wings at his window) and Scorpius changed up into fifth and then sixth gear, intent on closing the gap between them.

Without taking his eyes off Albus’ car, he raised his wand and conjured up his happiest memory.

* * *

The nose of Scorpius’ Porsche edged up alongside him as they approached the chicane that ended this devilish section of the track. Albus wondered, for a moment, if he should cut Scorpius off when he saw the _Sluagh_ , battering Scorpius’ window.

He sighed and slid his wand out from his right sleeve.

* * *

 The creature uttered an ear-splitting shriek and began hammering at the window with its beak-like mouth.

Scorpius tightened his grip on his wand and allowed the memory to bloom fully.

He raised his wand and just then, just for that moment, turned to face the creature and pointed his wand at it.

“ _Expecto Pat –“_

Before he finished the spell, the _Sluagh_ was knocked aside, shrieking, by a long, lithe, silvery form.

 _Cobra_ , Scorpius thought, and he glanced into the other car.

Albus lowered his wand and slowly nodded at him.

Scorpius turned away, glaring at the approaching chicane.

“ _You shouldn’t have left the inside line open_ ,” he told Albus over the team’s charmed headpieces and pulled ahead as the track lights flicked back on.

* * *

Rose was making her way through the stands where Zacharias Smith was standing, with the express purpose of grilling him now that Teddy was otherwise occupied, when the lights flickered and went out.

“For fuck’s sake,” she muttered as she tripped over a step and landed hard on her hands and knees. A stinging sensation on her left leg prompted her to roll up her jeans and she sighed at the thin lines of red underneath the scraped skin. She drew her wand from her back-pocket and was halfway through casting a healing charm when she heard the batting rustle of wings, accompanied by an unholy whistling of wind and wild shrieks and nearly dropped her wand in surprise.

 _Sluagh_ , she thought, hastily casting the healing spell, _But they've never -_

A long and terrifying scream pierced the night, just a few feet in front of her.

Rose edged back against the seats, trying to dredge up her happiest memory as the creature began hopping towards her. _Calm_ , she told herself, as the memory remained stubbornly blurry, her brain focusing instead on the threat of the _Sluagh_ in front of her. _Stay calm_.

A silvery greyhound leapt over her shoulder and the _Sluagh_ howled angry at it, before opening its wings and flapping off to join its brothers.

She closed her eyes and exhaled and was then rudely jerked to her feet by someone.

“Cast a Patronus,” Zacharias Smith instructed her, without so much as a ‘are you all right?’ or anything remotely approaching concern.

Rose shrugged off his grip and this time, summoned the memory easily and a moment later, a stoic beaver joined the sleek greyhound on the ground.

“Is that why you’re here?” she demanded, “To keep an eye on all of us?”

His lips curled into an unpleasant grin, “Maybe,” he said, “Merlin, you don't give up do you?“

“I don’t understand it,” she said, ignoring his question, “They’ve never done this before – the _Sluagh_ , that is.”

“It’s midnight,” he said, digging out a box of cigarettes from his robes, “It’s All Hallows Eve – or well, Samhain, if you want to be technical about it. You’ve never raced before on this track at midnight have you?”

“No,” she admitted, “But –“

“They don’t come out in full force until midnight,” he told her, “The witching hour –“ he snorted, apparently amused at the superstitions of the locals, “They don’t like the slightest trace of light.”

“But we’ve had stray ones in the past,” she said, pressing the point, “All they do is get into the engines and freeze them cold.”

 He paused for the slightest moment, Rose thought, as he pocketed the box, but his voice was steady as he answered her.

“They’re not fully formed _Sluagh_. It takes more than just a painful death to turn one of the fae into a _Sluagh_. Dark magic,” he exhaled and turned to her, smiling, “Lots of it.”

“Poor Lucilla,” she mused, digesting this new information, “All that fuss last year and not even for a real _Sluagh_.”

“Did she mention seeing the _Sluagh_?” he inquired, “Or well, the not- _Sluagh_.”

“Not actually,” Rose admitted as they waited for the cars to approach, the lights finally flickering back on again, “Her engine locked up in the middle of the race and she ended up running off into the gravel. The damn thing was completely frozen over when she got out and checked it. Teddy fancied she was trying to pull a fast one – you know how drivers are.”

Zacharias smiled. Drivers were never more creative than when they were devising excuses to explain their poor performances on the track. “She did have a lot of problems with her car. It’s only natural for Teddy to be suspicious,” he said.

“But one season?” Rose turned to face him, “She was right at the head of the pack all the years before that and then she simply went to pieces over the course of _one_ season.”

“So you think it’s not natural?” he asked her, raising his eyebrow.

“I’m not saying it isn’t,” she said, sitting back, “People have gone to pieces for much less, but it all happened so soon and people were so horrid about it too.”

Zacharias stubbed his cigarette out and took the plunge, “Tell me all about it,” he said encouragingly.

* * *

Scorpius won the race, Albus still hot on his heels even as the crossed the finish line – the nose of Scorpius’ Porsche crossing the line barely a millisecond in front of Albus’ DB3. Victoire came in third, grinning triumphantly at the cross expression on James’ face, just about visible in her rearview mirror. James Sirius Potter crossed the line in fourth place and in a raging sulk, slouching off in a temper to be on his own once he'd docked his car in the pits.

By the time Lorcan Scamander crossed the line, his car still ablaze, a full-scale brawl was going on in the pits.

“ _I don’t need your pity_ ,” Scorpius was yelling at Albus, barely restrained by Harry Selwyn and Marcus Fawley.

“Mate I saved your life out there,” was Albus’ reply, “After you put _all of us_ at risk with that fucking _idiot_ stunt of yours.”

“I had it all under control,” said Scorpius, “I’m not a careless, cocky sod like _you_ –“

Dinah Entwhistle hastily grabbed Albus’ arms before he could punch Scorpius, “It’s no use,” she told him, “Just walk away.”

Albus inhaled and then laughed, shrugging, “It all worked out to your advantage, didn’t it?” he told Scorpius, before he turned on his heel and walked away.

“Let him go,” said Harry, “You’ve won, yeah?”

“Yes,” Scorpius answered, his face all harsh lines, “I’ve won.”

But it did not feel like winning at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Valentiorem is a reinforcing spell invented for me by the lovely [EssayOfThoughts](http://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts)


	6. Investigating Basil Besillstun

Contrary to Rose’s expectations, her mother and father never guessed that there was anything wrong when their daughter shuffled into the kitchen, still groggy with sleep, and began dishing bacon on to her plate with only a muttered good morning. And Harry and Ginny certainly found nothing unusual in the fact that Albus was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at the unearthly hour of eight on a Saturday morning. Harry was only slightly startled by it before phlegmatically embracing this as a sign of his son's willingness to turn over a new leaf and become a responsible adult.

Ginny mentally noted the reddishness about Albus' eyes, but decided that it was the sort of matter best dropped in favour of distributing the morning mail rather than in pushing a confrontation.

There was a letter from Lily to her brother which he took from his mother and slid under his plate to read later. _That_ made Ginny raise her eyebrows – Albus would inevitably end up reading out carefully censored sections of Lily’s letters to his parents, but clearly today, despite the fact that he’d waltzed into the kitchen with a cheery good morning that made Harry blink twice in surprise, Albus was in an unusually taciturn mood. Either that, or he knew the contents of that letter and wanted to conceal its contents from his parents.

If there was a problem, Ginny decided, if either of them were in trouble, they could come and talk to them instead of expecting them to pry as though both he and Lily were twelve and she turned her attention back to her mail and her breakfast.

The letter in question, as Albus found out half-an-hour later in the privacy of his room, turned out to be no more than a hastily scribbled note in which Lily demanded to know who’d won the race so she could settle the bet she and Hugo had made with “that filthy sod” Alec Macmillan. Albus responded in kind, though his note was rather more neat and his scrawl far less like Lily’s untidy chicken-scratch.

 _Scorpius won_ , his note said, _Insists I threw the race over out of pity. Would have punched me in the face over it too, if not for Harry Selwyn. I don’t think he’ll last the season at this rate. Anyway, Victoire came in third. James is in a dreadful sulk because of it. Stop throwing money around on bets with Alec Macmillan go buy lollies instead. At the rate you lot are carrying on we’ll have Uncle Neville breathing down our necks before this season’s out._

Lily responded by sending him five galleons from her winnings and lovingly told him to stop being an arse and shut up.

* * *

The races at Biervale and Widdecombe passed without incident, barring Harry Selwyn’s blown tire, and were for the most part, unexciting. Victoire came third in both the races, though Lucy Weasley edged past James in Widdecombe to narrowly beat him into fourth place.  Lucy Weasley was James’ favourite cousin and so he gritted his teeth and congratulated her with visible effort in the pits after the race. She promptly embarrassed him by throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him, whispering in his ear that he was a brave and good boy, to James' utter embarassment and the delight of everyone else.

 _As if I was five_ , James would tell Rose indignantly, later on, though at the time he'd turned a bashful shade of red and mumbled something incomprehensible.

Albus won Biervale, though he told Rose he strongly suspected Scorpius had thrown the race to make up for the Old Hell Road. He said nothing to Teddy or Maggie, however and some of the tension between the two eased afterwards. Widdecombe was a photo finish and after half an hour of arguing, Teddy and Maggie finally reached the conclusion that it was Scorpius who’d won that race, if only by a fraction of an inch. Albus smiled and shook Scorpius' hand enthusiastically enough, but Rose couldn't help but suspect that the smile plastered on his face was about as real as the joke wands Uncle George was so fond of.

Rose left Widdecombe convinced of two things. One was that this season was clearly going to be a Scorpius-Albus affair. The other was that Zacharias Smith was _not_ following the circuit out of interest in the races, but, she fancied, out of some specific interest in Lucilla.

As Albus reminded her, it was natural he’d have been curious. They were cousins, even if they were distant cousins, and he had been there at the track when she'd crashed. He'd worked with Teddy, Uncle Harry and her dad to get Lucilla out of the wreckage. It was natural that he should have been troubled by her death and equally natural that he should be nosing about now, trying to uncover what he could about her accidents - if it made him feel better.

“Some people are like that,” he’d told her, “They feel bad for not knowing people they ought to have known while they were alive and so they try to get to know them after they’re gone and it makes them feel better.”

Scorpius had taken a less kindly view.

“He probably feels responsible for her death,” he’d said carelessly, despite Albus’ frowns, “Because he was the one who taught her how to drive and ended up getting her and Maggie together.”

Rose supposed there was truth to both of those statements though she thought his questions were a lot more searching than a grieving or guilty older cousin’s questions ought to be. Almost as if he was  _investigating_ something and not simply trying to piece together the last year of Lucilla's life.

She filed it away for future reference and determined to keep an eye on him.

* * *

The subject of Rose’s speculations was currently at his desk in his office at the Wixenomist’s London HQ, aimlessly twirling his quill as he frowned over the parchment before him. He was, to all extents and purposes, proofreading an article for next week’s edition of the magazine, but in truth, Zacharias Smith's mind was elsewhere.

Rose Weasley had proved to be extremely helpful, confirming all his suspicions, but as the magazine’s Editor-In-Chief had reminded him during the 2015 crisis, hunches did not a factual report make. A strong hunch, some odd papers here and there and idle gossip would hardly stand scrutiny as evidence in a Wizengamot hearing, not with Basil Besillstun on the stand.

He knew this; he'd experienced it firsthand when he'd watched all his - well, Mafalda, Miles and Wayne as well - hard work go down the drain three years ago.

Three years ago they’d put Basil Besillstun on the stand, along with Max Montgomery and a bunch of other slimy codgers, during the Wizengamot's public inquiry into rate-fixing on imports of assorted potions ingredients. Ten box files of evidence, countless reliable witnesses and three weeks later, both Besillstun and Montgomery had slipped free and some small fry by the name of Kenneth Vawdrey had received a three year sentence in Azkaban for fraud.

 _Three years_. If the case had played out as it should have, Besillstun and Montgomery should have been sentenced to six years  _each_ in Azkaban, but they'd gone scot-free and the press had had a field day.

Basil had sent a Christmas card to Justin following that inquiry, crudely depicting Justin stuffing galleons into his pockets. The card, of course, had found its way “accidentally” into the hands of the staff at _The Sol_. Christmas, of course, was utterly ruined, as Justin and Dennis ended up working over-time drafting up a statement to the press as an interim response to the card. Zacharias had wanted to run a full-scale exposé, publishing all the evidence which had been presented in private to the Wizengamot inquiry, in response to his godfather’s outrageous actions, but Justin had gone ahead behind his back and held a press conference without him (definitely Dennis’ handiwork) in which he’d laughed the whole thing off and generously invited the Wizengamot to investigate his accounts if they thought there was any truth to the insinuations Basil made about him.

He grudgingly admitted that Justin had probably handled the matter with far more tact and grace then he would have advised him to, but the whole affair had rankled and he was determined to net his godfather this time.

Anthony Goldstein believed his grudge against Besillstun stemmed from some residual hurt Zacharias felt at not being informed of Justin’s decision and not because justice had been eluded, but Anthony was _wrong_ as he so often was.

This time around, however, Zacharias was unsure of  _which_ charges precisely he was going to be pressing against his godfather and it was making him nervy.

It was just all so, well, neat and clear-cut. _Too_ neat and clear-cut. The documents Lisa had shown him almost definitely tied Basil to the embezzlements – he only needed to cross-check a few accounts and such, which Blaise Zabini had promised to do for him – but _murder_ simply _wasn’t_ Besillstun’s modus operandi. And judging by the engine failures and near accidents Lucilla had had, before the final one at Folkingham, Lucilla’s death almost certainly _wasn’t_ a simple case of engine failure though someone had tried to set it up that way.

So much planning for embezzlement and fraud, when Besillstun had literally flaunted his acquittal in the face of Justin and all of magical Britain? It seemed highly unlikely.

Zacharias sighed and gave up on pretending to be occupied with the article before him.

* * *

Cicely Selwyn-Smith, as he suspected, was writing letters at the table by the window in the summer house attached to the Smith family castle. The years had treated her kindly and although her hair was now a distinguished shade of grey (its uniformity maintained by the judicious application of hair dye), her face had none of the harsh lines to it that years of service in the Ministry as well as under Voldemort’s regime might have expected to lend her.  When the scandal broke about her employment during the regime, she had resigned with good grace and had devoted herself instead to making her balls and _soirées_ unparalleled successes among Britain's pureblood elite. She had even gone on to make a name for herself as a matchmaking mama, even though she had failed to gently bully her own offspring into marrying spouses of her choosing. Despite himself, Zacharias’ lips twisted sardonically as he watched her scratching at the parchment, no doubt dashing off yet another missive to some obscure pureblood relative inviting them to a _soirée_ or declining an invitation or some such trivial nonsense.

She was perfect and he despised her for it.

“Where’s the pater?” Zacharias asked her without preamble, as he entered the summer house.

Cicely Selwyn-Smith finished the letter she was writing, put her quill back in its stand, carefully blotted the letter she was writing, folded it, put it in an envelope which she sealed with the Smith family seal and only then looked up at her son.

“So nice of you to visit, Zacharias,” she said, “Aren’t you going to ask me how I am?”

Zacharias Smith regarded his mother with what might have been distaste if he had not schooled his features into a polite blank mask. He had been trained well and by the very best.

“Dad wrote to me a week ago,” he said dispassionately, “He said you were in the best of health and your soirée had been a success. If I ask you now, you’ll almost certainly tell me how frail your health is and how worn your nerves are –“

“He’s out with Spencer Davis,” she interrupted him, “You can go look for him if you want, I couldn’t tell you where they are even if I wished to,” she paused, “You might at least try to be polite, once in a while.”

“Probably,” he agreed, “I assume it all has something to do with the farms.”

“Possibly,” she shrugged and removed the quill from her stand, beginning yet another letter “You may wait for him in the library if you must see him.”

“Thank you,” he said, without a hint of irony in his voice and he left his mother to her letter-writing.

He ended up waiting a whole hour, reading _The Prophet_ for the second time that day, before his father returned. He could have, he reflected, put aside petty pride and gone back and asked his mother whether Besillstun had recently confided any of his plans to her but that would have meant having to see the triumphant glitter in her eyes when he returned to her.

“Besillstun?” David Smith raised an eyebrow, “You had best ask your mother about him,” he said, reiterating out loud what the uncomfortable, nagging voice in the back of Zacharias’ head had been insisting for the past hour.

Zacharias ignored it.

“I don’t know what he’s doing,” said Zacharias, instead, “But whatever it is, if I sic mother on him, it’ll only drive him to be even more discreet.”

His father smiled absently, “It may surprise you, but your mother was once known for being the most discreet person in the Ministry.”

“Yes, well,” Zacharias sniffed, “Some people would argue differently.”

“If you insist,” David replied.

“So you’ll keep an eye on him?”

David Smith sighed, shutting the book he was holding in his hands with a snap, and studied his son’s face carefully.

“I believe you are making several mistakes,” he told Zacharias, “But yes, I will.”

“Thank you,” Zacharias replied, marginally more earnest than he had been in his thanks to his mother.

David Smith opened the book he was holding in his hands and his son smiled wryly at the obvious dismissal before leaving David Smith to his own devices.

* * *

In a private smoking-room at the Odeon, Justin Finch-Fletchley was waiting impatiently for his husband, his son perched on his hip. His eyes flitted to the clock on the wall for the eighth time in the past ten minutes.

“I’m bored,” St John declared, “I want to go in.”

Justin turned his head and smiled, “I thought you wanted to wait for daddy.”

“But he’s _late_ ,” St John said, with impeccable logic, “Why’s he late? He’s _never_ late and now we’ll miss _everything_.”

Justin snorted, “Hardly everything rabbit, they only _just_ rang the bell for everyone to go in.”

St John pouted at his father and then began to turn a shade of red which Justin quickly recognized signalled the onset of a tantrum.

“We’ll wait for two minutes and if he isn’t here we’ll go in, all right?” Justin said hastily, “Don’t sulk rabbit,” he kissed his son fondly.

St John ducked away from Justin but his colouring returned to its naturally healthy shade of pink and Justin spied the beginnings of a small grin on his son's face.

“You’re a scamp, you know,” he told St John.

Zacharias Smith entered the room, his robes billowing about him, just as St John was protesting this attack on his character.

“You’re late,” Justin and St John chorused together.

 _"Very_ late,” St John said, glaring at his father.

“Am I now?” Zacharias glanced at the clock, “So I am. Come and give us a kiss.”

“I’m horribly sorry love,” Zacharias told Justin, as St John happily abandoned Justin for Zacharias, all grudges completely forgotten, “I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”

“Busy day at work?” Justin asked him, kissing him lightly.

“Yes,” Zacharias said and then abruptly changed the subject, “Where’s Michal?”

“Inside with Wayne – here,” he held their tickets out to the usher, “St John wanted to wait for you.”

“Scared, rabbit?” Zacharias asked his son, surprised at this sudden display of affection.

“I’m brave,” St John’s chin jutted out just like Justin’s did in his stubborn moods.  Zacharias glanced at Justin, to see if he too had noted it, but Justin’s attention was focused on the usher leading them in. There was a tightness to his Justin’s mouth that made Zacharias’ heart sink a little – it almost always precluded Justin losing his temper – before he banished both observations from his mind and turned his attention back to his son.

“Brave as a _lion_ ,” he said, grinning at St John.

“A _badger_ ,” his son corrected him and then obediently fell silent as they were ushered into the theatre.

“I flooed your office earlier on,” Justin whispered, once they were seated, “They said you’d gone to Pen Rhionydd.”

“Ah,” said Zacharias, “Yes.”

“Busy day at the office – all right dear, shutting up now,” Justin removed St John’s hand from his mouth, “We’re going to talk about this later.”

“Yes dear,” Zacharias said meekly and sank into his seat, looking, for all the world, like an overgrown five year old in trouble.

“Pen Rhionydd?” murmured Wayne Hopkins, a few minutes later, “I thought you limited your visits to Christmas every alternate year.”

 “None of your business,” Zacharias replied sharply.

“All right, don’t get your wand all in a twist, I only wondered if you’d heard about your godfather –“

“My godfather?”

Wayne glanced uneasily at Justin and then lowered his voice even further.

“Haven’t you heard?” he asked, slipping into their native Welsh, “He’s funding those kids,” he paused, “The racing kids.”

Zacharias sucked on his cheek for a moment before answering in Welsh as well, “I know.”

Wayne eyed Zacharias sharply, “Is it true then?” he asked, “What they’re saying?”

“If you mean about me and him falling out, no.”

“No,” Wayne rolled his eyes, “Besillstun. That this is payback for the inquiry.”

“What?”

“Don’t you know?” Wayne asked him and then continued when Zacharias shook his head, “They asked me after the ban was introduced. I told them I couldn’t, not in good conscience. Besillstun was their last resort. Burke was going to fund them at first but then he dropped out – says he received death threats. Now everyone thinks that’s a joke, it’s Burke – man must have realized that if the kids were caught, it’d be precisely the sort of excuse the Ministry’s been looking for to raid his shop. But then Zonko and Kiddell got cold feet at the last minute and pulled out and they had to go to Besillstun.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” said Zacharias uneasily, "It doesn't necessarily mean its payback -"

"It's too convenient," Wayne insisted, "Kiddell needs the interest from the loans."

"He could have gone about it half-a-dozen easier ways -"

“Look pretty damn bad won’t it, though, if it all gets out? Minister’s own family –“

“He’s hardly family.”

Wayne eyed Zacharias pityingly, “You imagine they’ll believe you didn’t know anything – your own godfather and your nephew, _you_ at the races?”

The theatre felt tiny and stuffy all of a sudden and the strains of _Babbitty Rabbitty, The Musical_ were drowned out by the roaring sound in his ears.

“Oh,” whispered Zacharias.

“Yes,” said Wayne, “Oh.”


	7. Autogeddon: Sex and Violence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not actually about sex, sorry.

“So,” said Justin, lowering his battered old copy of _The Way To Dusty Death_ as Zacharias shut the bedroom door behind him, having tucked Michal and St John into bed with vaguely worded promises to go see _Babbitty Rabbitty, The Musical_ again next week, “You were going to tell me why you were late.”

Zacharias said nothing, turning away to examine himself in the mirror. He unknotted his tie, his mouth drawn into a tight straight line.

“Specifically,” Justin continued, when it was clear that Zacharias was not going to answer him, “Why you had to make a sudden dash to Pen Rhionydd.”

“Can’t I visit my parents without you breathing down my neck?”

“You can,” Justin replied mildly, “I only wondered since we visit them once every other year – this is about next year and Besillstun isn’t it?”

“This may come as a surprise to you Justin, but surprisingly enough, I do have a life which does not revolve entirely around you,” Zacharias told him, flinging his shirt into the laundry basket in the corner.

He missed the way Justin’s eyes widened - the way he shrunk back as though he'd been slapped.

“I’m well aware of the fact,” Justin said a few moments later, his voice trembling only very slightly, “But I was hoping it had occurred to you that I might be _worried_ that you’re spending an undue amount of time being stressed over my well-being when I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself – and,” his voice rose slightly, “Don’t tell me that I’ve only managed so far because I have you and Dennis to thank for keeping everyone at bay and that’s why you have to worry because I’m a naïve blushing flower, unable to deal with the rigours of politics.”

Zacharias stepped into a pair of pyjamas and disappeared into the bathroom to brush his teeth.

“Are you even _listening_ to me? Merlin it’s like talking to a bloody wall,” Justin tossed his book on to his bedside table, “Can you at _least_ talk to me? You’ve been coming home at some unearthly hour every alternate Saturday mornings and every time you say it’s work, but when I floo your office they say you’ve left _early_ –“

Zacharias spat into the sink.

“But then it’s two A.M. and you’re still not home – I mean I’m used to it on the day before you lot go to the press, but _Fridays?_ And they all look at me like they’re _sorry_ for me, like I should _know_ somehow where you’ve gone, like there’s some secret that I’m not in on –“

“Well then, I’ll floo you every time I move out of my office to talk with sources then, shall I? Like a good little dog, let my master know where I am _all_ the time,” Zacharias slid into bed next to him.

“That might help,” said Justin, voice tight and strained, “Maybe then I’d pull my head out of my arse and realize that you have an actual job and that not everything revolves around me and what _I_ want because clearly you know, people who’re married don’t trust each other enough to tell each other if something’s going drastically wrong at work –“

“Don’t blame me, I’m not the one who’s been conducting press conferences on my own without –“

“Yes of course, it’s my fault just like it’s my fault that we only ever just act like _fucking_ walls in each others’ presence unless good-time-Charlie needs a go –“

“Well at least you’re _self-aware_ ,” said Zacharias, cutting in rudely, “Though I honestly wonder sometimes –“

“Wonder _what_?” Justin demanded harshly.

“Wanting to keep tabs on me all the time,” said Zacharias, examining his fingernails, “I mean sometimes I wonder if you think about me as a person or an overgrown lapdog – nice to see, nice to hold, nice to put up on your mantelpiece, lots of value –“

Justin’s hands twitched compulsively on the sheets. He took a deep breath in and shut his eyes.

“I’m – look,” he sighed, half a minute later, “Look – I – I’m sorry, I overstepped there – I just want to know if you’re all right – I mean you went and visited your parents of your own free will, Zach, what in Helga’s bloody name am I supposed to think?”

Zacharias turned to face his husband and smiled tiredly and just like that, Justin could feel his anger fade away, replaced with concern instead.

“Everything’s fine,” he told Justin, “Peachy. I just needed to cross-check something with the pater.”

“You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?” Justin asked him, reaching over and gently stroking Zacharias’ jaw with his thumb, “If something was wrong, or if things were difficult, right?”

“Of course,” said Zacharias and then he turned over and went to sleep.

That had been a week ago. Today was the twelfth of December, yet another Friday, and Miles Bletchley had just informed him that Zacharias Smith had left the office five hours ago.

Justin stared at the arms of the clock on the mantelpiece, the hour hand at one and the minute hand on the hour, as Miles’ head disappeared from the floo. One in the morning and still no sign of his husband.

“Of course,” he repeated Zacharias’ words bitterly, turned on his heel and went to bed without waiting up for him.

* * *

“Scorpius _please_ , just let it go,” Rose cried, running down the pits to catch Scorpius before he caught up with Albus, “It’s too early on in the season to start fighting like this –“

“You saw what he did,” he replied grimly, “The bloody wanker could have had us slaughtered on that corner –“

“It’s Albus,” she said, trying to pull him back, “Merlin’s sake Scorp, he’s always been a careless sod –“

“He can do _what_ he wants with his life; I object to mine being put on the stake so he can fucking _win_ –“

“Pot calling the kettle black much? I mean I don’t see you making any noise about how _you drove blind down The Devil’s nose with a bloody Sluagh attacking you_?”

Scorpius shrugged Rose’s hand off and turned on her angrily, “Go on then,” he hissed, “Go on and tell me how it’s all my bloody fault because it’s always my bloody fault isn’t it, with you and your _fucking_ family –“

“I’d tell you that,” she said coldly, “If I thought it would pull your head out of your arse, but that’s not likely any time soon is it?”

Scorpius let out a short, barking laugh and then stormed off in the direction of Albus’ car, helmet dangling from his left hand.

* * *

“Sweet Salazar,” said Victoire, throwing herself down on the settee, later that night, “You really are incompetent aren’t you?”

“Oh piss off,” Teddy replied, tossing his jacket over the back of a chair and wandering into the kitchen to look for food, “I’ve had it up to here with your fucking moralizing –“

“Moralizing? You can’t keep your team in line, Scorpius and Albus are fighting like a couple of wild dogs and you call this _moralizing_?”

“Godric’s sake Victoire, you’re really trying my patience,” Teddy returned, disconsolated, and flopped bonelessly on to the couch opposite hers, “How the fuck’m I supposed to keep Albus in check? He’s as stubborn as you in one of your fucking moods – no room for compromise, _no_ everything has to be just the way you want it and if it isn’t then shit’s going to be broken until everything’s just the way you want it.”

“Don’t make this about me,” she said, kicking off her shoes, “If you really wanted to you’d get him to toe the line.”

“Yeah I’m just a lazy sod, aren’t I? Responsible for everything, including your inability to drive – don’t give me _shite_ about levelling the playing field for everyone, you and James were only interested in getting in for points and medals because neither of you hold a candle to either Maggie or me in a car – and Albus’ inability to follow bloody instructions. Next thing I know you’ll be telling me to solve Greece’s cauldron crisis –“

“Yes why don’t you?” Victoire asked him, unperturbed by the insult to her driving skills, “Maybe that way you’ll live up to your mum and dad’s heroism and make something of yourself.”

Teddy shot her a venomous look before standing up, “I’m going to bed,” he told her, “I’m tired and I have an article to write tomorrow and you know _nothing_ , Victoire, _nothing_ –“

Victoire laughed.

* * *

There was a slight frost on the ground at Rydal, Cumbria, and a light snow was beginning to fall when the cars lined up on the track to start at precisely five minutes to midnight. Autogeddon, as the drivers fondly called the track, was a tricky one – all long straights which cut off in high-speed corners and steep inclines and falls. Successfully completing the race meant sticking to an average speed of nearly 150 mph – if only because anything slower meant being left miles behind the pack – while defending corners with ferocity and determination. Almost every year at least five or six drivers would be involved in a pile-up and someone would inevitably walk away with their arm dangling uselessly until they were fed Skele-Gro.

Guy Vaughan had retired from racing after one of these pile-ups. He’d been one of those newcomers everyone thought would be the Next Big Thing. In three races alone, it looked as though Guy was going to corner the season all for himself. The only racer who’d challenged him in any way had been Maggie and even she was no match for his cornering skills. By the time she caught up with him on the straights, they’d come round to a corner and then Guy would be slamming on the throttle at exits that should have been magically impossible – but there he was and Maggie would once again be trailing him, riding his slipstream.

Then Autogeddon had happened and Guy had gone completely to pieces. There was a massive pile-up – six or seven drivers – on the near final lap and Guy had gone hurtling straight into the middle of them at a cool two-hundred miles an hour. Someone’s engine, they still didn’t know whose it had been, had exploded. The whole thing had caught on fire and Guy Vaughan, trapped in the middle of the magnesium-metal-carbon-fibre inferno had had his face nearly burnt off before he collected himself enough to Apparate back to the pits.

The whole thing exploded merely a few seconds after he’d landed on his knees in the pits and emptied the contents of his stomach, his right hand bloody and gruesome from where he’d managed to splinch two of his fingers while Apparating.

Guy was forgotten soon enough but the name Autogeddon, the three inch headline the press had plastered with morbid glee all over their newspapers the next day, had stuck ever since.

None of this bothered either Scorpius or Albus as they roared through corners at speeds which should have been physically impossible and would have been physically impossible if not for the magic pumping the pistons of their engines and holding the rattling frames of their cars together. Lap after lap went by, sometimes with Scorpius at the head of the line and sometimes Albus at the head of the line and once, with them side by side.

By the time they were on their seventy-fifth lap of the track, with only two laps left to go, the winner could have been anyone’s guess and even Zacharias Smith, who always made a great show of being bored by everything, had abandoned his notebook and investigations to watch the race with something approaching actual _enthuasiasm_.

“And here they come down the final straight, Albus and Scorpius neck and neck – will they break this? Will this be another tied lap?” Mick Jordan bellowed enthusiastically, up in the control room where he and Teddy sat during the race, “And Scorpius starts to edge away, but Albus opens up the throttle and _bloody hell_ that Aston really does go and Albus pulls across the line, _just a foot ahead of Scorpius_. Will Albus win the race? Can Scorpius close the gap before it’s too late? And here comes Victoire, hot on their heels but not enough to keep up with them – come on James and give those bloody snakes what for –“

They sped past, Mick’s commentary barely appearing to register – Albus didn’t even raise his hand to give them one of his cheerful salutes – and Rose clutched at the notebook she was holding as the pages flapped wildly in the wind following in their wake. 

Ten minutes later, on their second-last lap of the race, Anne Davies attempted to overtake Alex Boothe on the inside of the second-to-last corner. Alex Boothe swerved in an attempt to cut her off, miscalculated badly, and ended up ramming into the side of her car. They spun out in a tangle and before either of them could get their cars straight again, Lysander Scamander had rammed into them both, edged off the road by Ursula Flint.

In a few minutes, the flames from Lysander’s car had spread to the other two and despite their Aguamenti charms, very soon the drive-able section of the lead up to the corner had narrowed to let only one car pass.

Scorpius and Albus rounded the corner, Scorpius on the inside line and slightly ahead of Albus and both of them on their final lap.

“Bloody hell,” hissed Scorpius, looking at the spreading flames a few hundred meters away from them.

Albus grinned and slammed his foot down on the accelerator.

“Albus,” Teddy’s voice was urgent, “Albus, pull back, he’s ahead of you as it is.”

“There’s three hundred meters left to go,” said Albus, “Anything can happen –“

“Albus, Albus, listen to me mate, just pull back and let him past – you can catch up with him on the next straight –“

Albus’ grin widened and he pulled the charmed earpiece out, flinging it away.

Teddy’s voice crackled urgently from the seat next to him.

“Sorry Teddy, you really need to work on those charms,” Albus murmured, “I can’t hear a damn thing you’re saying.”

* * *

“He’s got to pull back,” said Anne, “He has to.”

“I don’t know,” said Alex uneasily, watching the two cars approaching.

“Get _down_ ,” said Lysander, grabbing the two of them and pushing them away from the track.

* * *

Draco had taken him to visit Guy Vaughan after the accident.

“It’s not safe,” Guy had said, “They’re all mad.”

“I won’t end up like you,” Scorpius had told him scornfully.

“You should quit,” Draco told Scorpius later, “You saw him.”

“I won’t end up like him,” Scorpius had answered, “I’ll be safe. I promise. Word of a Malfoy.”

Scorpius was the only one who wore helmets while racing.

He breathed in deeply, trying to loosen the tight little knot in his abdomen and then he slammed his foot all the way down on the brakes.

* * *

“Chicken,” whispered Albus, as Scorpius’ tires screeched and wailed like a banshee in pain.

* * *

Scorpius spun his wheel around and pulled the handbrake up hard, his car finally screeching to a halt a few inches away from Lysander’s car.

He punched his dashboard in frustration, then pushed the handbrake down and put his car back into gear again.

“Your tires are shredded mate,” Lysander bellowed, banging on his window, “You’re fucking mad.”

“Learn how to brake next time, will you, Scamander?” he shouted back.

* * *

“You fucking _wanker_ ,” yelled Scorpius, flinging his helmet away, “You utter _bastard_ , you _threw your headpiece away_ –“

Albus held up his hands, laughing, “They stopped working mate. Useless piece of shit, wouldn’t you agree?”

Scorpius slammed into Albus and Albus fell backwards on to his car. Several people leapt forward to stop Scorpius, but Scorpius had already seized Albus by his collar.

“The only piece of shit here,” he hissed, his face inches away from Albus’, “Is you. That was _my_ corner –“

“I’m sorry, I must have missed your name on it, _chicken_ –“ Albus began to cluck like a hen.

“I’m not a coward.”

“No,” Albus agreed, as Scorpius let him go and turned away, “That’s your dad. You’re just a miserable little chicken –“

He reeled backwards and tripped over the hood, falling to the ground as Scorpius’ fist slammed into his jaw.

“Leave it mate,” said Harry Selwyn in disgust, “He’s just trying to get a rise out of you,” he raised his voice, “‘cos he knows he’s a cheat.”

Albus gestured rudely at Harry as he stumbled to his feet. He ducked hastily, as Scorpius swung his fist at him and several people reached out to grab Scorpius at the same time.

“ _Scorpius_!” said Teddy sharply as he strode up the pits, “Stop.”

“You saw what he did out there –“

“I’ll deal with it,” said Teddy, “Me. All right? No punching, none of this shite or I’ll bar you yeah?”

“Let it go mate,” Selwyn murmured in Scorpius’ ear, “Don’t make it any worse.”

Scorpius shrugged Harry off and walked away, holding his hands up in the air in surrender.

“Go get cleaned up,” Teddy told Albus as Harry eyed him with disfavour.

“That’s it?” Anne Davies demanded incredulously, “That’s all you’re going to do? I mean for fuck’s sake he nearly got _us_ killed as well –“

“I’ll deal with him later –“

“You’d better, Lupin,” said Harry harshly, “None of your favouritism.”

Teddy looked at the gathered drivers, some of them curious – far too many of them angry and mutinous.

“I’ll deal with him,” he repeated and then followed Albus off the pits.

“I don’t trust him,” murmured Ursula Flint, loud enough only for Harry Selwyn and Marcus Fawley to hear her.

“Neither do I,” Harry answered, his eyes still tracking Teddy Lupin’s departing figure.

* * *

“I know you’re awake,” said Victoire, sliding into bed next to Teddy, “Fix it. Fix it before someone gets killed again. Please.”

Teddy stayed facing away from her.

“They’re a bunch of hungry wolves and they’ll eat you if you let them,” she whispered, kissing the back of his neck, “Don’t let them.”

She flopped back on her side of the bed and within a few minutes was fast asleep.

Teddy fell asleep hours later, just before the sun rose and when he slept, he dreamt of explosions and the way Harry, Ursula and Marcus had glared at him as he left the track.

* * *

 _There’s dinner in the oven_ , read the note, _I’ve left your pyjamas and some sheets out for you on the couch. I have to be at the Ministry by seven thirty tomorrow morning, don’t wake me._

Zacharias crumpled up the note and flung it into the fireplace, his face completely devoid of emotion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Autogeddon is the name of a collection of poems by Heathcote Williams. It's very anti-car in spirit. The Way To Dusty Death is a novel by Alistair Maclean and partial inspiration for this fic.


	8. No Wind Of Blame

_Now is it Rome indeed and room enough,_  
_When there is in it but one only man._

\- Cassius, Julius Caesar Act I, Scene II

* * *

At precisely 11:55 AM the following Tuesday morning at the Wixenomist’s London headquarters, Mafalda Prewett sailed into Zacharias Smith’s office, unbothered by social niceties such as knocking before entering or checking if her colleague was busy. She settled herself on his desk unceremoniously, kicked off her terrifyingly green nine-inch heels and then promptly got down to business.

“So,” she said, “Who’s the new squeeze?”

Zacharias paused in the process of clearing his desk for lunch and looked at her, bemused.

“What?” he said flatly.

“You know,” Mafalda wiggled her eyebrows expressively, “Your cicisbeo.”

“Are you drunk?” he asked her bluntly and then without waiting for an answer, sniffed at her clothes.

“Arse,” she batted him away, “Miles bet me ten galleons I couldn’t keep off the stuff before noon so I’m proving him wrong. Anyway, don’t distract me darling, I’m trying to find out whether you’re having an affair.”

“If I was having an affair I’d hardly tell you,” he said dryly.

“So _cagey_ – I knew it,” she poked him in the chest, “So, who’re you off bonking?”

“No one except my husband, as far as I know,” he answered, “Which gossip rag have you been reading now?”

“Who said its gossip,” she said darkly, “And not a mysterious source?”

Zacharias regarded her with a mix of amused fondness, resigned patience and a hint of scepticism. Mafalda sighed and caved, handing him the newspaper she was holding.

“Betty Vanity of _The Sol_ is under the impression you’re having a torrid affair and the 'dream team' – can you believe it? You’re _hardly_ anyone’s dream –“

“Thanks”

“ – is on the rocks because you’ve been sneaking in at three in the morning every alternate Friday night.”

“Ah yes the paps,” he said, shutting his bag, “Which of your friends do I have to pay?”

She smacked him playfully, “I wouldn’t have bothered telling you in the first place ‘cept for the closing sentence.”

Zacharias sighed, holding the paper up to read the passage in question.

“Well?” she asked him, when he continued to stare at the paper long after he’d finished reading.

“Did you do this?” he asked her in a low voice – barely keeping it from shaking, Mafalda realized, with anger.

Mafalda considered hitting him in earnest this time around. The insinuation that _she_ would _sell_ information on her friends to gossip rags for profit – or for fun, he probably imagined it was for fun – offended her deeply.

“Whatever _shit_ I pull,” she said evenly, “I wouldn’t sell my friends out like this and you know this.”

“A little bird tells us that Mr Smith has taken to leaving his office early on Friday nights, without telling Mr Finch-Fletchley or his office where he’s off to – ‘it’s not business’ says our anonymous source, ‘so it’s got to be pleasure’ –“ Zacharias slammed the paper down on his desk, “Sounds exactly like something you’d pull –“

Mafalda threw her head back and laughed, “Darling if that’s the kind of shit you’ve been spewing at home, it’s no wonder you and Justin are on the rocks –“

“I hate you,” he said viciously and then slammed out of his office.

She ferreted around for his stash of scotch, now that it was precisely three minutes past noon, and then settled down, grinning to herself as there was yelling, followed by a loud crash from Miles’ office next door.

“If you were nicer,” she told the empty room, taking a swig from his bottle, “I could have told you to go ask Charlotte Meryton. It’s such a shame you aren't.”

She left his bottle, nearly empty, out in the open on his desk, picked her shoes up in her left hand and then strolled out at a leisurely pace, grinning in satisfaction at the sound of the editor-in-chief of the magazine scolding both Miles and Zacharias coming from Miles' office.

* * *

“Did you read _The Sol_ today?” Zacharias asked Justin later that day.

“Occupational hazard,” Justin answered as he carefully transferred the remains of the chicken pie into a smaller vessel for storage, “Yes.”

“Well?”

Justin filled the pie dish with water and then began scrubbing, “You tell me.”

Zacharias bit his lip for moment and considered leaving the question unasked. Leaving it _unanswered_ , the traitorous little voice in his head said snidely. He wiped viciously at a stubborn dried gravy stain on the table, pretending it was the little voice.

“D’you believe it?” he asked Justin, eventually.

“Believe what?” Justin replied absently as he began stacking dishes in the dishwasher – for all the comforts that the wizarding world could have afforded them, they’d chosen a muggle house of all the things and it irritated Zacharias no end. Though even he had to admit that sometimes it made staying in touch with Susanna much easier.

“That I’d do that.”

 Justin stood up straight and pushed his dark curls back from his forehead, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know,” Zacharias replied flatly.

“You certainly don’t make it easy,” Justin muttered underneath his breath. He shut the dishwasher and set the cycle.

“Justin,” Zacharias continued, when it was clear Justin was not about to explain himself, “You don’t believe that, do you?”

“No I don’t,” Justin replied, tiredly, as he hung up his apron.

Zacharias dusted the crumbs off his sponge into the dustbin, carelessly dropped his sponge into the sink and then slid his arms around Justin’s waist, pressing his nose into the small of Justin’s neck.

He tried not to think about the way Justin remained stiff and unyielding in his arms.

“I wouldn’t,” he whispered, “I promise.”

“It’s late,” Justin said calmly and Zacharias wondered wildly, for a moment, if he would stay this calm if he were to dig his nails into Justin. Hurt him. Something that would crack the icy façade Justin had been hiding behind for four days now.

“I have to be at work early tomorrow,” Justin continued, when Zacharias showed no sign of letting him go.

“I’m sorry,” Zacharias mumbled into Justin’s neck, carefully ignoring the way Justin tensed when his lips gently touched Justin’s skin, “I should have told you I would be late on Friday.”

“You should have,” Justin agreed, “And we should have this conversation later when I don’t have to be at work in the small hours of the morning.”

He pulled away from Zacharias.

“I really am sorry,” Zacharias said earnestly, “We should talk this out now –“

He followed Justin out into the hallway.

“Justin –“ he said, as Justin started climbing the stairs, “Merlin’s sake Justin, you can’t keep on doing this –“

“I’m going to bed,” came the reply, “Switch off the lights and stuff when you come up, yeah?”

The wood was indented slightly where his nails had dug into it, when Zacharias finally released the wooden bannister he was holding.

* * *

“I can’t believe he quit the team,” said Albus, kicking sulkily at a loose stone and watched it roll away through the crowds, “Bloody arse.”

It was lunch hour at Diagon Alley and he and Rose were slowly making their way through the bustling crowd towards the Leaky Cauldron for their weekly lunch together. 

“They’re right about disciplinary measures, you know,” Rose said judiciously, “Teddy ought to have been stricter with you.”

“I thought getting my face punched in was punishment enough,” he grumbled.

“You know what I mean.”

Albus sighed, “I just don’t understand what he means to do by quitting the team just as the season’s getting into swing.”

Rose paused, carefully arranging and rearranging the words as they entered the Leaky Cauldron.  Truthfully, there were lots of things she would have liked to tell both Teddy and Albus at this point, but the two of them were just so bloody stubborn and blind to everything that she’d have to tread carefully just to get them to listen. Not that Albus (or Teddy) would do anything - Godric knew Victoire must have lectured him to hell and back again - but Rose clung firmly to the belief that one day they’d all pull their heads out of their arses and actually listen to her.

It wasn’t until they were seated at a table and they’d placed their orders that she replied.

“D’you want the truth?” she asked him.

He looked surprised at that, “You know I do – I wouldn’t – you know?”

“I know,” she said dryly, “A lot of people are unhappy Albus – no, don’t make that face at me – and Merlin Al, you and Teddy can be so _daft_ sometimes,” she paused, “Scorpius – he’s only the tip of the iceberg.”

Albus scowled.

“I mean, I’m not surprised,” she continued, after the waitress had left them their food and drinks, “Teddy always _has_ given you the upper hand – a lot of people think this whole thing’s been a long time coming – _did you have to rib him_?”

Albus rubbed his face with his hand. There were dark circles underneath his eyes, Rose realized at that moment, and he looked paler than usual. She toyed with asking him if he was fine, but that was never a wise option with Albus. He'd probably bite her head off and then promptly clam up if she drew attention to his peaky appearance.

“It just – it just came out,” he pleaded, “I didn’t really mean it.”

“No,” she said kindly, “But you have to understand how it looked to everyone else – and then Teddy let you walk away scot-free afterwards.”

Albus poked sulkily at his steak.

“You should apologize.”

He looked up at her, his head tilted at a slight angle and considered her advice for a few minutes, then smiled ruefully.

“You’re probably right,” he admitted, “But I won’t.”

“Albus –“

“Don’t bother,” he advised her, “Scorpius wants a fight – he’ll get his bloody fight.”

“Al –“

“ _Don’t_ ,” he said harshly, “I’m tired of walking on eggshells for his sake. I’m _tired_ ; this is _mine_ , all right? It’s a sport, it’s nothing more and at the end of this we’ll go back to being friends again and it’ll be like nothing happened at all.”

Rose wasn’t so sure about that – Flint, Selwyn and Fawley seemed like they were much more than nothing – but she smiled at him anyway, for his sake; for _her_ sake.

“If you’re sure,” she said.

“You’re such a worrywart,” he said, dodging her as she raised her hand to smack him, “I’m sure Rosie.”

* * *

Scorpius looked at the brake spring Harry was holding out to him.

“The brakes on my car work just fine,” he told Harry.

Harry shrugged and pocketed the spring, “Right now they do,” he said, “But will they survive all the way past Slige Mliduachra?”

“I’ll take my chances, thanks,” said Scorpius.

“Well if you change your mind,” Harry’s voice trailed off as he tapped at the new body frame Scorpius was fitting his car with, “What did you tell your dad?”

“I told him it makes the body stronger and safer,” Scorpius wiped his hands on a cloth, “It was enough.”

Harry grinned, “You know it's not all about shaving the weight off your car - sometimes its just pure braking?"

"I know."

"Well," Harry shrugged, "If you ever want to, the offer's still open, yeah?"

“I’ll think about it,” Scorpius answered.

* * *

“Did you know,” said Tracey, arranging the breadsticks on her plate with careful concentration, “That your cousin asked Kev about Britain’s best Sugar Rush dealers? There. Doesn’t that look nice?”

“Harry?” Zacharias frowned.

“Harry’s your nephew, you nitwit,” she answered, “Though it wouldn’t surprise me if he was involved somehow. Your dead cousin,” she stopped arranging her grissini and looked at Zacharias, “Lucilla. Lisa told me you were investigating her death.”

“Of course she did,” he said drily, “Lucilla’s your first cousin you know?”

Tracey waved her hand airily, “Quibbles. Aunt Drusilla thought she’d got herself mixed up in something over her head involving the trade which mum thought was a load of rubbish, but then Kev told me about this – It was all after that business with the Wizengamot, you know –“

“The smuggling,” he supplied helpfully.

“Right,” she said, “With the speakers. And the rehab. Kevin’s an arse –“

“Thanks,” said Kevin Entwhistle, draping an impressive shagpile coat on the back of a chair and sitting down next to Tracey, “Anyway I came clean, didn’t I?”

“Only after you realized you'd accidentally landed in legal hot water,” Zacharias said into his glass of wine.

“Exactly,” Tracey stuck her tongue out at Kevin, then turned back to Zacharias, “Anyway, as I was saying, Aunt Drusilla thinks she’d got herself in trouble and that her death wasn’t an accident –“

“’s a load of bollocks though,” said Kevin, stealing a breadstick off Tracey’s plate, “You know how Lambos are – look at them wrong and poof, it’s all up in flames.”

“She was a witch wasn’t she?” demanded Tracey, “And it’s not like your stupid Ferrari is any better –“

Kevin bristled visibly and opened his mouth to defend his Ferrari but Zacharias cut him off neatly.

“I’d think a witch working in the DIMC would be able to charm a car well enough to keep it from exploding – _even_ if she was a pureblood, but accidents happen every now and then,” he said reasonably, “I wouldn’t care except her engine froze over in one of the races.”

Tracey’s fork clattered to the floor.

“ _Froze_?” Kevin said, astonished.

“The kids thought it was the wild dead,” Zacharias drained the rest of his wine and put the glass back on the table, “They were wrong. Ghosts don’t freeze things. What did you tell her?”

“Not much,” he paused and frowned in concentration, “She knew about the mafias –“

“ – everyone knows about the bloody mafia,” Tracey murmured.

He glared at her and then turned back to Zacharias, “I told her to ask you, actually. Well you or Michael. Didn’t she ask you?”

Zacharias shook his head slowly.

“I should have known,” he said angrily a few moments later, “The kids – the races late at night – so bloody _easy_.”

Tracey reached across the table to where he was drumming the table nervously and placed her hand on his, “Talk to Aunt Drusilla.”

“When did she ask you about this?” Zacharias asked Kevin.

“Just before the last hearing finished,” he answered, “The middle of July, I think.”

“I _really_ think you should talk to Aunt Drusilla,” Tracey said meaningfully, “It might help both of you.”

Zacharias sucked on the inside of his cheek, “We should order dinner,” he said, instead.

Tracey and Kevin exchanged glances and Tracey sighed, picked up her menu and began flipping through it.

“Right,” she said, “Caviar, anyone?”

* * *

“You couldn’t have picked a better place could you?” Marcus Fawley complained, picking his way carefully over the cobbled pathway, trying not to get his robes soiled, “Somewhere on Knockturn Alley, for example?”

“Too many ears,” Ursula replied shortly, briskly weaving her way through the crowd, “You’re as vain as a peacock.”

“Well you try explaining – ow,” he rubbed his arm where she’d pinched him viciously, “What –“

“Do you want us to get mugged?” she hissed.

Marcus shut up after that and followed her, meek as a lamb. Fiddler’s Green, he thought, had been named by someone with either a very terrible sense of humour or a very black one. Some kind of pathetic excuse for _heaven_ , if this was where virtuous sailors’ souls came. Or maybe they left them behind here and collected them when they died – he wasn’t entirely sure which, but he fancied the latter. It would explain, at least, why the place was a bloody inferno even in early January. They must have stood out like sore thumbs here, even in their oldest robes – a pureblood witch and wizard trying to look inconspicuous among the throng of sea-hardened sailors, (pirates, probably, his brain supplied helpfully, not doing anything for the little ball of fear settled in his stomach), pale vampires and gnarly old hags.

He tightened his grip on his wand and kept his head down as he followed Ursula.

Soon enough, they came to a pub called _The Kraken’s Beak_ and Ursula ducked inside. Marcus glanced around only briefly before following her into the dimly lit tap-room.

“What now?” he asked her.

“We get ourselves a private parlour,” she set her jaw squarely and made for the landlord, a burly wizard with a thick black beard and an eyepatch.

Marcus followed, discreetly clutching at Ursula’s robes.

“We’d like a private parlour,” she told the wizard firmly, her chin tilting up ever so slightly.

The wizard turned and studied first Marcus, then her and then turned away as though he hadn’t heard her.

 “I was told,” she said loudly, “That you have a private parlour available for hire.”

“Flint,” a familiar voice said in her ear, “Let me handle this.”

Ursula glared at Harry Selwyn, but inched to the left, allowing him to slide in beside her.

“Daffyd, if you please,” he said in Welsh, “The private parlour.”

The man glared angrily at Harry Selwyn, reluctantly pointed them up a dimly lit narrow stairway to the right and then looked expectantly at Harry.

“Thank you, _Jones_ ,” Harry dropped a cloth bag of coins on the bar and the three of them climbed the stairs.

The parlour was a narrow room with a low ceiling, dimly lit by a candelabra on the table. There were hooks on the walls – meat hooks and fishing hooks, harpoons and spears and some other hooks, too big to hold any _ordinary_ fish. 

“D’you think they’ll come?” Marcus asked Ursula and Harry, turning away from the chute he’d been examining.

“They’ll come,” Ursula assured him.

“And if they cause trouble?” Marcus toyed with one of the hooks on the wall.

“Then we use one of those hooks on the wall and dump them down the chute into the Thames and no one will ever know,” Harry said flippantly, “They have a strict non-interference policy here.”

“Those aren’t just meat hooks are they?” Marcus asked him, finally sitting down opposite Harry.

“No.”

“Lovely,” said Ursula sardonically. In the dim light of their parlour she and Harry Selwyn might have passed for brother and sister if only because of the hard way their mouths twisted and their cold eyes. But then, they all must have looked alike, a little – hardened by years of learning that their names were badges of shame now that the war was done and they had lost, or played neutral a little too casually. Even Marcus Fawley had a certain hardness to him, that same peculiar tendency to lash out and cling to what little of the authority they had left for themselves, or perhaps hex someone a little too soon for suggesting they had no place in this new world. 

The door rattled slightly and Marcus glanced at Ursula, who nodded slowly at him.

“What’s she doing here?” Harry demanded when Dinah Entwhistle followed Anne Davies in to the parlour.

“I’d be a terrible friend if I let her walk into a den of vipers roosting in ‘Bluebeard’s Chamber’, wouldn’t I?” said Dinah, looking around her, “Cheery.”

“You can’t –“ said Harry and then broke off as Ursula’s nails dug painfully into his wrist.

“You don’t like them either,” Ursula said matter-of-factly.

Dinah hesitated, glancing at Anne who smiled encouragingly back at her, “I like them well enough, but I don’t trust their sense of what's fair and what isn't.”

This seemed to satisfy Ursula and she turned to Anne, “What are you ready to do about it?”

Anne’s eyebrows shot up, but her voice was even as she replied, “Complain formally. Find out who else feels this way.”

Marcus shifted, his face twisted in discontentment and Ursula answered, “There was no punishment. Nothing,” she said, “I could name maybe four people who are happy with the way things are –“

“What do _you_ want to do about it?” Dinah asked, crossing her arms where she was standing.

“They’ve broken the rules,” said Harry, reaching inside his robes, “Which makes this a free for all.”

He opened his left hand, revealing a single brake spring.

“Magically reinforced – the latest from Germany; from my uncle. The charms are, um, let's say, unmentionable. It’s not much,” he admitted, “But it does give one an advantage on Slige Mliduachra.”

“You know we have to declare anything that could give us an advantage,” Anne said sharply.

“I don’t see the Potters and Weasleys declaring their kinship ties,” Ursula replied coolly.

“It’s cheating,” hissed Anne, rising from her chair, “I won’t –“

“Albus Potter went unpunished and unchallenged for disobeying team’s orders _and_ for putting the lives of other racers at risk,” Harry said sharply, “No bans, no being sent to the back of the line –“

“This isn't –“

“Scorpius quit his team,” said Dinah quietly and everyone turned to look at her, “Two races and Teddy still hasn’t decided on a punishment for Albus – Albus, in the meanwhile, goes on to win at Folkingham and only loses at the Sweet Track because Victoire managed to edge her way up into first,” she scowled, “I think it’s safe to say there isn’t going to be any punishment –“

“Dinah,” Anne glared at her, “You can’t –“

“No, I can’t win,” Dinah agreed, “But I might as well take what I can – you can better your arse that Dougie will, and Alex and the rest of them, if they haven’t already.”

“Have they?” Anne asked Ursula.

“It’s not my place to say,” Ursula replied primly and Anne’s lips curled back in a sneer, Ursula’s refusal to answer as good as a confession.

“And Albus?” said Dinah, amused by Ursula’s denial.

Ursula and Harry exchanged a glance before Harry answered.

“I’ll be surprised if he finishes.”

* * *

“I thought all of this was top secret,” Zacharias muttered as he and Michael trudged up the gravel path to the Yaxley manor.

“It’s drugs,” said Michael succinctly, “All the drug cases get pushed on to me, no thanks to you.”

“I gave you a career, be thankful,” Zacharias replied and paused looking at the oversized bronzed knockers with unicorn heads on them, “Look at this –“

“Don’t dawdle. Ring the doorbell,” said Michael patiently, “We can admire the garishness later.”

Zacharias scowled and tugged on the heavy bell-rope.

“No one’s home, we can go,” he said, a few seconds later and would have turned to go if Michael hadn’t caught his arm and held him firmly in place.

A wizened old house elf opened the door a tiny crack and peered at them.

“Yes?” it said.

“Michael Corner, head of the Illicit Substances Division of the Auror Department,” Michael said pleasantly, all the while maintaining a vice-like grip on Zacharias’ arm, “This is Zacharias Smith, a nephew of some sorts of Mrs Yaxley – I believe Mrs Yaxley is expecting us?”

The elf glared at them and, Zacharias fancied hopefully for a second, would have shut the door in their faces if a tall witch with hair that had been dyed a raven-blue-black had not appeared in the hallway behind them.

“Zacharias Smith?” she demanded sharply.

“Er, yes,” said Zacharias, and then hastily added, “Ma’am.”

Michael snorted next to him and Zacharias lightly stepped on his foot in retribution.

“You’re the one who wrote that report in 2000,” she said, “Broke up the drug smuggling ring on the French Riviera.”

“Yes,” said Zacharias, “That is,” he added, when Michael discreetly elbowed him in the ribs, “Michael and I did. Ma’am.”

“Hm,” she glanced cursorily at Michael and then looked back at Zacharias, “And you introduced Lucilla to that foul sport.”

“Um,” said Zacharias guiltily, “I’m very sorry, ma’am.”

“Hm,” she said, “You’d best see her room. Yoakley let them in.”

“Let me _go_ ,” Zacharias hissed underneath his breath, as the two of them trudged into the house.

“You’re as skittish as a bloody colt, I’m not fucking letting you go,” Michael replied sotto voce, “Not until we’ve found out what we need to – ‘sides," he added, looking around, "It’s not every day I get to visit an international pop star’s mansion.”

“Follow me,” the witch said and then glared at Michael, “Don’t touch anything.”

He pulled a face at her when her back was turned and Zacharias felt a surge of sympathy. Drusilla Yaxley _nee_ Fawley was arguably the most terrifying and forbidding female in his acquaintance and that was saying something, considering the number of terrifying female relations and friends he had. Tracey’s father had once called her an amazon and Zacharias concurred – at six feet and two inches in her stockinged feet, with a demeanour which made the Arctic seem friendly in comparison, Drusilla Yaxley was easily the most terrifying woman in _anyone’s_ acquaintance. From what he knew of the Yaxley-Fawley romance, that was precisely why her husband had married her.

Lucilla, mercifully, had been nothing like her mother – or at least, not terrifying to him, though the fact that she was younger (and shorter) might have had something to do with that.

“Cheery place, isn’t it?” Michael whispered, as they followed Drusilla down a wood-panelled corridor lined with shields, battle axes and paintings depicting bloody battle scenes.

“You should visit home some time,” Zacharias replied, "I'll show you the prizes of the Smith family collection - a real  _Draig_ _Goch_  skeleton and the living Smith family in all its sordid, pureblood glory."

Michael grimaced, "Thanks but no thanks."

“I haven’t touched anything,” Drusilla announced, opening a door right at the end of the corridor, “If you must touch something, make sure you return it to how it was.”

“Of course,” said Zacharias pleasantly, as he and Michael filed obediently into the room.

It was a large room, though not richly furnished like the rest of the house. Clearly Lucilla had put her foot down about having velvet wall-hangings and mantelpieces lined with exotic curios, because the room was tame and even home-like in comparison to the rest of the house. There were a few photographs on the mantelpiece, of Lucilla and her friends, along with her prefect’s badge. One single painting depicting a fox hunt hung on the wall over the mantelpiece. In the corner by the window, stood her Nimbus 3000. It was neat and sparse and almost exactly like the girl Zacharias had known, albeit casually.

Her desk, in stark contrast to the rest of the room, was cluttered and untidy. There were four books and several files piled high. Two books lay open on the desk, side-by-side, as though Lucilla had been reading them both simultaneously before she left. The ink-well was half full and there were three quills, each equally as well-chewed as the other. There was a half-scribbled parchment on the table as well, weighed down by a miniature eagle, and there were several scrolls carelessly piled next to the books.

Michael picked up one of the open books and examined the title.

“It’s your book,” he said, handing it to Zacharias.

“It’s your fault,” Drusilla said, in a low voice from the door way, her fists tightly clenched at her side.

Zacharias and Michael paused in the middle of their search and looked over their shoulders at her.

“My fault?” said Zacharias incredulously.

“She read your book,” she replied, “She loathed her job. She thought she could do something like it. I told her – Lucilla, England isn't France – but she wouldn’t listen –“

“Are you saying,” Michael said carefully, “That you think her death was a set-up by someone in the drug trade in England?”

“You’re the Auror who was on the Entwhistle/Fanged Bite case, weren’t you?” she replied, eyes narrowing, “You know she talked to him a month before she died?”

“Yes, but –“

“She was obsessed with the case – the way they’d smuggled everything in the speakers and the equipment – it should have been obvious; Trocar’s father was one of the Billingsgate mafia – “

“Michael,” Zacharias, who had turned back to the desk and had been rummaging in the draws of the desk, stood up and held up two bottles, one with pills in it and the other containing a fine powder – white with golden-orange flecks in it.

Both of them were unlabelled, but the bottom of each bottle had a familiar name carved on it – _Besillstun & Besillstun Potions Co._

“Sugar Rush,” breathed Michael, “Bloody hell.”

“You see?” Drusilla declared triumphantly, coming into the room, “She thought she could get to the bottom of this on her own –“

“D’you think Besillstun would?” Michael asked Zacharias, ignoring Drusilla.

“I don’t know.”

“She visited him three weeks before the crash,” Drusilla said unsteadily, “The man has his fingers in absolutely everything, but you two,” her eyes glinted wildly, “Standing around here as though Besillstun wouldn’t sell his own grandmother if he thought it would make him a profit –“

“We need proof –“ Michael snapped, the failure to nab Besillstun three years ago still fresh and raw in his memory.

“Here’s your _fucking_ proof,” she snarled, snatching the parchments on the desk and thrusting them at Zacharias, “My daughter died because she wanted to be just like her cool and aloof and distant cousin – his godfather is a criminal and _everyone_ knows it but _no one_ does anything about it.”

Zacharias caught the parchments being thrust at him and looked at Lucilla’s scribbled notes.

“We’re working to catch him, ma’am,” said Michael, “The Department’s been working day and night on it.”

She sneered, her opinion of the Auror Department evidently not very high.

“I don’t believe,” Zacharias said slowly, “That Besillstun is transporting drugs around Britain, using their cars –  money-laundering, maybe, a lot of the team investments have been, let’s say, disproportional – but –“

He paused, thinking of the way some of the drivers had eyes which shone unnaturally brightly, or the way some of them fidgeted incessantly – the red rimmed eyes and runny noses; _Harry’s_ red-rimmed eyes –

“There is a drug problem,” he said, “But I don’t think it’s the one Lucilla thought it was.”

Michael frowned, but said nothing.

Drusilla looked at him for a long time, then nodded and stood back, “You don’t think it was an accident either.”

Zacharias shook his head.

“Very well,” she smoothed out her robes, “Please leave.”

Michael cleared his throat, “May we?” he held up the two bottles.

“If you must,” she replied coldly, holding herself straight and cold like a magnificent Greek statue - as though she had not been ready to claw Zacharias' eyes out only a few moments ago.

Later, when he and Zacharias were alone outside the house Michael turned to Zacharias.

“All right, spill,” he said, “What do you know?”

“Some of the kids have been doing Laelaps to stay alert while racing,” Zacharias answered, “My nephew, probably, and some of his friends – I should have noticed it earlier but it only clicked when Tracey brought this business up the other day.”

“So you don’t think its smuggling?”

“I don’t think so,” said Zacharias, “I don’t even think its money-laundering now, now that the sport’s illegal.”

“Lucilla seemed to believe it though,” said Michael, “You saw her notes – she still believed it by July.”

“It just doesn’t fit,” Zacharias replied mulishly and Michael threw his hands up in despair.

“You’ve got one of your bloody hunches, haven’t you?”

“Off the record – did Wayne tell you how all the other funders mysteriously dropped out leaving Besillstun as their only option?”

“Answer my question Smith.”

Zacharias sighed, “Yes, I’ve got a hunch.”

“Lovely,” Michael grumbled, “You know that shite doesn’t fly with Potter right?”

“Sorry,” said Zacharias, not sounding sorry in the least bit, “Have you been to The Inferno?”

“What?” Michael was thrown by this sudden change in the direction of the conversation, “Yes? Mate, I was there the night Justin felt you up in public –“

“Yes,” Zacharias said hastily, the tips of his ears turning red, “How would you like to test my hunch out there?”

“If you’re paying for the drinks,” said Michael, “And as long as it’s strictly not business - not Auror business, at least.”

“Not work at all,” Zacharias agreed, “It wouldn’t do.”

“And the drinks?”

Zacharias regarded his friend with fond irritation, “Wanker. All right, I’ll pay.”

“I’m in,” said Michael, “But I’m not cleaning up any of your messes.”

“I wouldn’t dream of having it any other way,” Zacharias murmured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this chapter derives from a Hamlet quote in Act IV, Scene VII: "And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe, But even his mother shall uncharge the practice and call it accident."
> 
> [Laelaps](http://tobermoriansass.tumblr.com/post/109826425745/thelethifoldwitch-just-as-there-is-in-the-muggle) is a drug invented by thelethifoldwitch/[EssayOfThoughts](http://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts). The vampire band referred to over here is the [Three Fanged Bite](http://thelethifoldwitch.tumblr.com/post/122890783823/there-are-and-will-always-be-more-than-just-a) and is also an invention of theirs. Y Draig Goch is the [ Coppered Welsh Red](http://themonsterblogofmonsters.tumblr.com/post/119890294174/coppered-welsh-red-extinct-dragon-breed-the), created by themonsterblogofmonsters/[EssayOfThoughts](http://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts).
> 
> [Fiddler's Green](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiddler%27s_Green) is a supposed afterlife in nautical lore, for sailors who are virtuous/pious/have served more then 50 years at sea. Sailors who weren't as virtuous/pious went to Davy Jones' Locker.


	9. Féar Gortach

“Michael says its drugs,” said Lisa, settling herself comfortably in the spare chair in Zacharias’ office, “He also says you disagree.”

Zacharias sighed, turned the page of the draft column he was reading and continued proofreading in the hope that Lisa would get the message and leave.

“Do you mind?” he asked her presently, “Some of us have jobs outside of the Ministry.”

“It’s lunch hour,” Lisa replied dryly.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, “Is there a rule about you lot descending like hawks without warning?”

Lisa smiled blandly at him, “Keeps everyone on their toes, which is something you come to value in this field.”

“Michael’s wrong,” said Zacharias, relenting under Lisa’s questioning gaze. He sighed again and then pushed the draft into a file, “But I don’t have any _proof_ that he’s wrong.”

“Tell me about your hunch,” Lisa replied, not unkindly, “Reconstruct the crime.”

“It’s not _a_ crime,” Zacharias got up and placed the file on top of his filing cabinet, “Scotch?”

“Get on with it Smith.”

He poured himself a drink from the bottle of Scotch he kept in his filing cabinet in lieu of having any actual papers in his office and then frowned, slowly turning the glass around in his hands, “Here’s what we have so far: very clear evidence of funding discrepancies dating back to about three years ago, two bottles of Sugar Rush in Lucilla’s desk with labels from my godfather’s chain of apothecaries and a car crash which nearly killed Lucilla. They’re all connected – but how? Lucilla began asking questions, starting with Kevin Entwhistle and the Fanged Bite case. According to Kevin she was very interested in the smuggling aspect of the case, but he couldn’t help her there – he was high most of the time anyway. We know she met with my godfather some time after that meeting with Kev. Her investigations into the accounts date much further back, a whole year and a half before her queries about drug smuggling. After she starts nosing around Besillstun, however, her car starts causing her trouble during races.”

He paused and took a sip of his scotch.

“Then,” he said, quite calmly, “Her car really packs up and she goes up in a ball of flame. My interpretation is this,” he placed his glass on top of the filing cabinet and turned to face Lisa, “Lucilla knew about the account discrepancies but couldn’t figure out which of the funders was behind them – Burke? Perfect way to launder Galleons that changed hands over illegal dark artefacts. Kiddell’s been struggling with business for years now and if he just _happened_ to run a few businesses on the side to keep his wand shop afloat, this would have been the perfect way to hide it. But then Lucilla finds Sugar Rush in somebody’s car and the bottles all come from Besillstun’s apothecaries. Now the obvious conclusion would be that someone put it in that bottle for convenience’ sake, but Lucilla has,” he paused, his voice faltering slightly. His gaze slid to the rude illustration of the MEEP’s financial situation thoughtfully doodled for him (and fastened to his wall with permanent sticking charms) by Mafalda.

“Issues,” he said, finally. Easier than explaining the oddities of pureblood obsession or ennui or even the way those old houses warped a person to someone who probably thought living in one of those grand old houses was a luxury.

Lisa raised an eyebrow, but said nothing at this obvious hesitation.

“So,” he smiled tightly at Lisa, drawing his gaze away from the illustration, “She remembers the investigation three years ago, about the embezzlement and concludes that Besillstun must be connected to the two and wouldn’t it be grand if she could be the person to prove that? There are a few accidents. Warnings, let’s say. She takes this as an encouragement to keep nosing around. She has a meeting with Besillstun. A few weeks later, her car explodes and she burns to death. The sport is made illegal. The kids approach funders because they can’t run these cars on their pocket money alone. Burke says he's received death threats and drops out. Then Kiddell –“

“Hold on,” said Lisa sharply, “Where did you hear this?”

“A private source,” he replied, his face a completely blank mask that dared her to probe further.

“A private source,” she repeated, her face mirroring the blank expression on his face, “Of course.”

“Kiddell drops out soon afterwards,” he continued, when she failed to push the subject further, “And Besillstun discreetly takes control of the entire matter. He has them all by their wands – and a lot of them kids of very well-respected Ministry officials and war heroes.”

“So you think,” she said slowly, as he knocked back the rest of his scotch and refilled his glass, “That Besillstun is playing a deep game?”

“I don’t know what his game is yet,” Zacharias admitted, “But that’s what I think. A man who wriggled out of a bloody Wizengamot investigation and then joked about it in the _Sol_ afterwards is hardly likely to lose his head and have a girl in her mid-twenties murdered because she found two bottles of Sugar Rush with his apothecary labels on it.”

“And the account discrepancies,” Lisa reminded him.

His lip curled in automatic disdain, “You think Michael and I hadn’t compiled a series of accounts more comprehensive than Lucilla’s work?”

“You know what I think?” Lisa asked him.

“What do you think?” he leaned against the filing cabinet and smiled sardonically at her, “Go ahead. Tell me.”

“I think,” she said, folding her arms, “I think that you’re so wrapped up in yourself that you think it’s impossible that a twenty-seven year old girl working with the DIMC could have outdone you, Michael and Granger in digging up information that would make Besillstun very worried for his various business interests. You find it so implausible, in fact, that you’ve ignored the simple explanation in favour of concocting a theory that has no proof whatsoever, simply so you can assert that Besillstun is playing some kind of deep game and you get to keep your reputation intact. In fact, very simply, you’re mad that it’s _Lucilla_ and not _you_ who drew Besillstun’s ire because for years now, you’ve wanted your family to make good on the threats they’ve been making you, instead of clinging to you in the hope that one of these days, you’ll see the error of your ways and come crawling back to them.”

He looked more amused than anything else by this little speech of hers, “So you think it’s ridiculous.”

“ _Rubbish_ ,” she corrected him, “I think its rubbish. Not that I blame you. You’ve got to compensate for your failures elsewhere, I suppose, but I don’t appreciate the fact that you’re letting your insecurities about your marriage interfere with your work on this case.”

“My marriage?” he asked her incredulously, “Merlin’s sake Lisa, what d’you mean by that?”

“You and Justin,” she replied levelly, “Therapy. Or were, at any rate, before you decided to wreck your therapist’s office and accuse her of leaking your session transcripts to the gutter press in a spectacularly public meltdown.”

He crossed his arms and sneered, “Are you telling me I’m _paranoid_?”

“Yes, exactly that,” she replied coolly, “I’m glad to see we’re on the same page.”

Zacharias gave a short, sharp barking laugh.

“Just like the old days,” he said unpleasantly, “Zacharias Smith, too much of a skeptic. Asks too many questions.”

Lisa rolled her eyes and stood up, smoothing out her robes.

“That’s my cue to leave,” she said, hand on the door, “Don’t let your private life interfere with your work, Smith. You might be able to get away with thrashing Bletchley in his office here, but Perkins will eat you alive if you screw this case up because you overreached in an attempt to compensate for your insecurities.”

Zacharias Smith angrily downed the rest of his glass of scotch and poured himself a third glass as the door shut behind Lisa. It was only half-past one but frankly, he couldn’t bring himself to care about being drunk on the job. They were all sloshed on the job nowadays anyway. Miles, half in love with Mafalda, trying to drown his sorrows in wine in a truly Romantic fashion. Mafalda, always slightly drunk on gin or vodka and always too loud. Blythely with his whiskey, because Miles and Mafalda were always drunk and always quarrelling about something or the other and because everyone, _everyone_ was stupid. Eddie – Merlin knew what Eddie Carmichael did to his nervous system, but the books and arts section of _The Wixenomist_ thrived (as did his antiques business on the side) and that was all that mattered, even if Eddie was slowly killing his brains with too much champagne mixed with Sugar Rush while doing so.

The only sober department was the Obituaries department, which was fitting. The dead didn’t do much by the way of carousing.

And there was Justin, of course, who didn’t work for _The Wixenomist_ but remained annoyingly sober and annoyingly calm even though he was Minister for Magic and should have been reduced to a gibbering wreck by now. On the other hand, the gutter rags were convinced that Justin was a saint and that Zacharias Smith was a philandering slag – which made him wonder, sometimes, if Ernie was the one tipping them off about him because Ernie disapproved of him and Justin almost as much as Zacharias’ own family disapproved of him and Justin, though Ernie disapproved of _Zacharias_ and thought Justin needed to be protected from his evil philandering ways.

(His family, surprisingly, believed precisely the opposite despite the overwhelming proof that it was Zacharias who had done all the philandering of the two of them and not Justin. Ernie, at least, made a practice of basing his suspicions in fact and not blood status, even if he got his facts all muddled up sometimes.)

Zacharias stared down at the empty glass, Lisa’s words ringing around his brain. The therapist _had_ been telling Kitty Perkins about him and Justin, but admittedly, wrecking her office had probably not been the best way to go about things. His nerves _were_ wearing thin with the constant scrutiny and Justin’s cold silences, which he’d suddenly break and be extremely affectionate and Zacharias had lost the ability to tell how or why Justin blew hot or cold nowadays.

For a moment, he let himself imagine the satisfying sound the glass would make, shattering against the wooden door of his office.

And then he filled his glass yet again and decided that lunch could wait till dinner.

* * *

Albus looked down at Scorpius’ Porsche and sneered.

“Heard you replaced the frame on your Porsche,” he said, “Scared of a few sharp corners, Malfoy?”

“No,” Scorpius replied, coolly continuing with his pre-race checks, “Just being wise. Not that you’d know what that feels like.”

“I know what winning feels like,” Albus replied, “Remind me again, how many races did you win on your own merit?”

 He watched the vein in Scorpius’ jaw throb with something approaching satisfaction.

“Winning isn’t everything,” Scorpius replied.

“You keep telling yourself that Malfoy,” said Albus, “While you eat my dust.”

Scorpius’ Porsche roared into life and Scorpius revved his engine almost angrily.

Albus threw his head back and laughed.

* * *

“Ready?” Ursula asked Harry.

He inhaled deeply.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” he replied, getting into his Bentley.

“And you’re sure this will work?” she pressed.

“Yes,” he smiled, despite the nervous butterflies tickling at the bottom of his stomach, “I’m certain.”

* * *

The Aston wobbled.

There was no other word for it. Something was off, just that little bit, that made the car feel less like a knife cutting through the air and more like a pudding wobbling around the track. That was exaggeration, perhaps, but something was slightly off. Every time he stepped on the throttle, the Aston’s frame vibrated just a little too much. The steering was off balance too. It was barely noticeable – just the slightest delay in response, wheels just a _little_ too stiff underneath his hands, as though just a little bit of the power he’d put into the steering had been siphoned off. It wasn’t a lot, barely distinguishable in fact, but it was _there_ and it was niggling at him. Something was going wrong somewhere and Albus had no idea what it was.

“It’s all clear,” he muttered to himself.

The diagnostic spells were all blue. Everything was working as it should have. No odd lights blinking at him on the dash. Nothing. The engine even sounded healthy, with its rich guttural purr-bordering-on-a-roar.

Albus shook his head and stepped on the accelerator again.

He looked uncertainly at the way the rearview mirror shook just a little too much as the Aston gained on Scorpius’ Porsche.

Teddy would have called him paranoid, but then Teddy lacked finesse and whatever other faults Albus may have had, a lack of finesse was not one of them. Teddy applied brute force to his cars and pushed them hard around the track. Albus and Scorpius both teased the speed out of their cars. True, Scorpius lacked flair and had only a dowdy sort of genius about him, but Albus could respect the precision with which Scorpius shaved off weights and tightened screws, all to give him those few milliseconds that could make or break a race. Even if he did think Scorpius was a wanker with poor nerves. Even if it meant that Scorpius was ahead of him right now.

The Slige Mliduachra was not a particularly trying road but it demanded care and precision and speed in a dangerous mix that Albus always seemed to miss by a slim margin. _Too slapdash and too excitable_ , had been Lucilla’s verdict on his driving. Of course, Lucilla was dead and he was not, so it was a moot point in his opinion.  The road itself presented far less of a problem to him than the grass did. Clip it and, so it went, you woke the Féar Gortach and (according to Rose) it tried to kill you.

Not that anyone had _actually_ seen the grass attempt to murder someone.

Albus thought it was a bit of a joke. Which meant, of course, that Rose had caught him by the ear and yelled about not getting on the grass especially not today, with Lysander spewing fire in all directions in his great big ugly brute of a car.

(“I don’t care, if Scorpius lands up ahead of you, let it go. Don’t clip the bloody grass.”

“It’s hardly going to kill me while I’m inside my car.”

“That’s not the fucking point Al, would it _kill_ you to have a little less pride?”

“Probably more likely than death by some bloody grass.”)

Scorpius’ Porsche was pulling away.

Rose, Albus reflected, was just being Rose. The grass had never actually _hurt_ anyone and there’d been at least four or five crashes on this track over the past few years.

He gritted his teeth and slammed his foot down hard on the accelerator, nosing up alongside Scorpius’ Porsche as they approached the Mill Point. The Aston wobbled again, just that little bit, and Albus bit his lip.

 _Back down_ , shouted the little voice in his brain which sounded remarkably like his cousin Rose.

The needle ticked upwards – 150, 155, 160, 165, 170 –

The figure of the old abandoned mill loomed large and ominous in the moonlight. Albus frowned at the way the Aston quivered again when he changed down. He thought he might have imagined it, but it seemed far more noticeable this time. The corner was quickly approaching, though, and it was too late to back down. They both spun their wheels at the same time: Scorpius on the outside line and Albus taking the inside line hard.

For a moment he edged ahead of Scorpius and the road shone empty and silvery in the moonlight. He could make it. He was going to win this. The race was in the bag. He spun his wheel around the other way to straighten the car out. Then the rearview mirror rattled visibly and the next thing he knew, it was grass underneath his wheels and the oddly piled stack of tires along the sides of the tracks in front of him.

Albus slammed the brakes hard, mud flying in all directions, and came to a stop a few feet away from the barrier. And then with something like a sad little cough, the engine cut out and Albus Potter was left staring at the barrier in silence.

He slid his wand out of his sleeve and muttered several diagnostic spells in quick succession. The spells were still intact: no thinly fraying light lines which meant that the charms were wearing thin and had to be renewed and no wrongly coloured lights which meant spells had merged together to produce some unwanted effect. So it couldn’t have been a problem with his charm work that had made his Aston understeer and send him off the track.

The grass around the car rippled dangerously even though there was no wind, but Albus, chewing thoughtfully at the inside of his cheek, missed it as he tried to remember the spell Rose had taught him to look for faulty wiring.

In the moonlight, the rustling grass looked far less dangerous and far more beautiful than it should have.

Albus sighed heavily, undid his various seatbelts and then got out of the car and opened the hood.

“Lumos,” he whispered, peering down at the engine, looking for anything that the spells could have missed.

The grass around his feet wriggled and shook almost as though it was alive.

The engine coughed back into life as Albus tugged the wiring around at random. Rose was better at this sort of thing. He did the spellwork, she did the legwork. This was outside their agreement, but at least the engine was up and running now and Albus fancied he might even be good at this if he was interested in being good at it.

The steering, however, was not up and running. In fact, as Albus put his hand on the wheel and experimentally turned it this way and that, he realized their little excursion on to the grass seemed to have stopped it from working altogether.

Albus straightened up and looked over at the track.

“Fucking wanker,” Albus swore without much rancour, as he watched Lysander Scamander overtake him. Even if he got back on the road and kept his foot on the throttle and never let up, there was no way he was winning – and well, you had to change down for corners unless you were mental or suicidal. Which he wasn’t. Yet.

“For the love of Merlin,” he slammed the bonnet shut. Under the car it was then.

He slid underneath the car and held his wand up. There, plain as day, was the problem: a loose contact in the steering. Sighing, he put his wand between his teeth and got to work on it.

Consequently, he missed the way the grass quivered excitedly and then grew long spiny fingers that wrapped themselves around his ankles first, then his shins and thighs. He missed the excited hissing, carelessly ascribing the hissing noise to the wind – the _non-existent_ wind – blowing in the trees. The grass continued growing wildly anyway. A whole hand and part of an arm emerged from the ground and wrapped itself around his torso.

Albus grumbled to himself, still unaware of the way there were now several arms emerging from the ground around him, or the way the grass was all rippling towards where he was lying.

“That should do it,” he said indistinctly, took his wand in his hand and then braced himself to slide out from underneath the car.

He remained very firmly where he was.

“What the fuck,” he whispered to the underside of his Aston Martin.

On his right, slowly edging into his vision was a face. Or something that looked very much like a face. Only it appeared to be made of grass and there were large dark gaping holes where its eyes should have been. It stretched and wavered indistinctly before forming into a proper face, with a gaping wide mouth.

 _Féar Gortach_ , he thought unusually calmly, _I’m going to die_.

 _Fire_ , was his next thought, immediately followed by: _yeah if you want to die with the Aston melting into you_.

And then, almost instinctively, he found himself waving his wand and yelling _Aguamenti_ at the face, as it dived towards his throat.

The face dissipated and Albus lay there for a moment, surprised that it had worked at all. Then several hands came towards him and the next few minutes were a haze of cold water splashing in all directions and wild-wand waving that would have made Scorpius regard him with a mixture of fondness and disappointment at his ineptitude.

Scorpius and he were fighting, though.

Albus struggled out from underneath the car, a pair of hands still wrapped around his ankle, and opened the door.

Something hard knocked into him and sent him sprawling to the ground.  Several pairs of hands grabbed at random parts of him, one very smartly grabbing his wand hand and pulling it away from him. Then a pair of hands settled around his throat and pressed hard. Albus scrabbled at the slick wet grass ineffectually with his single free hand and then swore roundly at Lysander, Rose, Scorpius and also his aunt because if she hadn’t had her way, there would have been Aurors hanging around the track and Albus wouldn’t have had to figure out how to cast an _Aguamenti_ without the use of his wrist.

The stars began to spin and his head felt like it would explode soon if he didn’t get those hands off his neck.

Somehow, he managed to aim his wand vaguely in the direction of the attacking grass and whispered a hoarse _Aguamenti_.

His vision wavered and it may have just been him but he thought there were less stars in the sky now than when his grassy attacker had attacked him a few moments ago.

Later on, he’d tell Rose that he struggled viciously and that a lot of punching and kicking was involved. In truth, Albus remembered very little between the world slowly sliding away from him, his wand hand, somehow pointing at the grassy body on top of him and his mouth forming the word _Incendio_ and somehow crawling into the Aston and shutting the door against the roiling and murderous grass outside.

He fastened his seatbelt with shaking hands, started the car, reversed and straightened it out to get it back out on the track.

That was when it happened.

The grass rose up, six feet tall and then slowly took the form of a man. Albus watched in horror as the grass fell in the vaguely recognizable drapes of a Quidditch uniform, a beater’s bat in one hand and then the face – a face that had once been on the front page of every newspaper of magical Britain, right till Albus was fourteen –

The thing snarled and then charged at his car.

Albus shut his eyes and slammed his foot down on the throttle.

(“Mr Potter,” he’d said, his blue eyes twinkling, “Albus Severus Potter. Lord help us all.”

Scorpius had snorted at that.

“Here you go,” Quigley carelessly tossed the poster, now signed, back to him, “Change your name when you grow up, there’s a good lad.”)

The car rammed into the body – _thing_ , Albus’ brain supplied helpfully. Finbar Quigley’s undead, eyeless and grassy face yowled angrily at him before rolling harmlessly off the bonnet and then dissolving into the grass.

Keeping one hand on the wheel, Albus reached for the paper bag he kept in his glove compartment.

* * *

Zacharias watched with narrowed eyes as Albus Potter turned down the pit lane instead of continuing with his lap.

* * *

Albus stopped the car once he'd pulled into the pits and pressed his forehead against the steering wheel.

Finbar Quigley had disappeared four years ago. No one knew where. No one knew why. People went missing all the time in the wizarding world. If they didn’t turn up within a few months, then people forgot about them. It was as simple as that. The only suspicious thing about his disappearance was that he’d gone just before the Bats were to play the Caerphilly Catapults. It wasn’t like Quigley, everyone had said wisely, to miss a match unless he was really in trouble.

Well, Albus thought unnecessarily, trouble had certainly found Quigley.

Finbar Quigley, quite clearly, had been murdered. There was no other reason why he should have been anywhere in Ireland without returning to play for the Ballycastle Bats. Someone had murdered him and left his body where the Féar Gortach could devour it. The perfect murder.

Albus reached for his glove compartment, his hand still trembling.

* * *

Zacharias strode down the pits determinedly. It wasn’t like one of the Potter kids to give up in the middle of a race, no matter how far behind they were trailing. Not unless their nerves had failed them and he had a strong suspicion that it wasn’t all just pep talks keeping the kids’ nerves together.

Not if Lucilla’s find had anything to do with it.

* * *

Albus rolled down the window and breathed the cold night air. Then he started unscrewing the first bottle he held in his hand, ignoring the gnawing feeling of hunger in his stomach. A single pill dropped on to his hand and he swallowed it without water.  This was followed by another one. He screwed the lid back on, tossed it carelessly on to the passenger seat and then unscrewed the lid of the second bottle. The contents of this were scattered unevenly along the vanity mirror he’d prised from the sun visor over the passenger seat.

He screwed the lid of the bottle back on.

“I’ll take that,” a hand reached in through the window and prised the bottle from Albus’ hand. The mirror with the contents of the bottle followed suit.

“Sugar Rush,” said the intruder, “I don’t know whether I ought to congratulate you or scold you.”

Albus opened the door and scowled up at Zacharias Smith.

“It’s none of your business,” he snapped and made to grab the bottle.

Smith easily dodged out of the way and held it out of his reach.

“Drugs,” he said, “Have been my business since I was twenty and I successfully exposed a drug smuggling ring in the French Riviera. Even more so when it’s the eighteen year old son of my husband’s colleague.”

He turned the bottle over and frowned over the label for a moment before it disappeared into his robes. When he looked up, his face was completely serious and devoid of the usual sardonic amusement that characterized him.

“Why Sugar Rush?” he asked Albus.

“It’s really not your business,” said Albus.

“You’re right,” said Zacharias, “It isn’t. I should tell your father. Or better still, Betty Vanity. Or maybe the head of the Illegal Substances Division of the Auror Department – remind me, what’s the punishment for possessing and using Sugar Rush?”

Albus glared at Smith sullenly but mumbled, “Six months in Azkaban or one year of therapy with Healer Audley at St Mungo’s.”

“And how d’you think that would reflect on your father?”

 Albus straightened his back and stared defiantly and silently at him.

“All right,” said Zacharias, after a short pause, “I don’t expect you to care in particular about your health or how this drug is slowly but surely pulverizing your brain and your immune system – Merlin knows I didn’t care at your age. Your parents, however, deserve better.  That’s what everyone else will tell you and they’re all correct, even if I personally, detest both your mother and your father. So does everyone else on the track, though the way things are at present, I’m sure you’d like at least two drivers dead. However, it’s your responsibility to make sure you’re not endangering the lives of your fellow drivers by driving under the influence of drugs, unless, that is, you desperately want to spend some time in Azkaban – in which case, I’ll be more than happy to turn you over to the Aurors for racing in an illegal sport in the first place.”

He considered Albus’ silent and sulky figure for a moment and then peered inside the car through the window.

“Ah,” he said, “There’s more.”

“Piss off,” said Albus.

“Manners,” said Zacharias mildly, gently but firmly moving Albus to the side.

“Nerve pills,” he said as he emerged from the car, pocketing that bottle as well, “That’s a bad sign for any driver.”

Albus shrugged, “None of your business.”

“So you keep telling me,” Zacharias said dryly, “That makes it what, a year and a half in rehab with six months of community work in some tiny little wizard village – probably Ottery St Catchpole, so you don’t get yourself into trouble?”

“Let’s compromise,” said Zacharias, when Albus remained steadfastly – and sullenly – silent, “I won’t tell your parents or the Auror Div about your little drug problem, if you tell me what I want to know.”

Albus watched him with a guarded expression, “What do you want to know?”

“Who sold you this?” Zacharias asked him bluntly.

“Why don’t you ask your nephew?”

“Oh don’t worry,” Zacharias replied cheerfully, “I fully mean to thrash the answer out of him. You’re not the only one who’s going to get a grilling.”

Albus rolled his eyes, “It was your nephew. Harry Selwyn. He gives us – me the –“

“Us?” Zacharias’ eyebrows shot up, “So there’s more than one of you?”

“No,” said Albus with a little more force than was necessary, “Just me. He passes it on to me.”

“Hm,” Zacharias replied, unconvinced by Albus’ protestations, “And you don’t know who gives him the stuff?”

“I asked him once,” said Albus, “He smirked and asked if it wasn’t good enough for the _great Potter_ –“

“So you shut up and let him keep his secret,” Zacharias nodded, “Of course. Last question –“

Albus crossed his arms, “All right.”

“What did you see,” Zacharias said slowly, “That made you abandon the race, pull over in the pits and pop two nerve restoration pills and a hefty dose of Sugar Rush?”

Albus considered lying, or just telling Smith the story with the Féar Gortach. It was none of Smith’s business. None of this was Smith’s business. He ought to have held his tongue.

But then, he reflected, if Smith meant to land him in trouble, he’d already given the man enough information to get both him and his family in trouble for a long long time.

“Finbar Quigley,” he said quietly.

“ _What_?”

“I understeered and crashed at Mill Point,” said Albus, “The grass attacked me, you know how it is. I don’t know what happens to the grass here, but it turns into some kind of undead inferi – Rose probably knows what it is better than I do. One of the fucking things tries to murder me – nearly succeeds at strangling me. I get back in my car and start it up, I’m almost ready to go and there’s fucking Finbar Quigley, in his _Quidditch robes_ _and with a beater’s bat in one hand_ , only he’s made of grass and he’s fucking dead and fucking mental, so I slam the accelerator down and run over him because what do you do? _What do you do_ –“

He broke off and wrung his hands in a pathetically young gesture.

“Here,” said Zacharias, forcing him to sit down on the hood of the Aston and pressing a flask into his hand, “Drink up.”

Albus obeyed. Whatever it was – brandy, firewhiskey or spiced wine, it tasted so awful he could hardly tell – burned going down his throat.

“What are you going to do?” he asked Smith, handing him the flask.

“Talk to Lupin, for starters,” he replied, “Find Quigley’s body, possibly. _You_ are going to park your car, go home, have some food and then sleep it off and forget this happened. All right?”

“Can I have my – you know – things – pills – back?”

Smith eyed Albus in a friendly manner, “Between you and me Potter,” he said, “I think I’ll find more good use for it than you will. Good luck explaining your desperate need for more pocket money to your family.”

He dug his hands into the pockets of his robes and strolled away, whistling carelessly.

Albus gestured rudely at his departing figure.

“Wanker,” he said, in agreement with his entire family for the first and last time in his life.

* * *

“Lupin,” said Zacharias, strolling over to Teddy’s side as the last of the drivers left the track, “I’d like to talk to you, if you please?”

Victoire rolled her eyes, “Don’t keep him too long.”

“Thank you Ms Weasley,” he replied, “Just a little shop talk, you know how it is.”

“What is it?” Teddy asked him curiously, when Victoire had left.

“What do you know about the little, ah, substance problem plaguing the drivers?” Zacharias asked him, lighting a cigarette.

Teddy stiffened, “What do you mean?”

“Come off it Lupin,” drawled Zacharias, “You really don’t expect me to believe that you have no idea that your own protégé is busy stuffing himself to the gills with nerve restoration pills and snorting Sugar Rush off vanity mirrors, do you?”

Teddy opened his mouth to reply, but Zacharias bulldozed on.

“Because if you do,” he said, unpleasantly, “I’d seriously wonder about your credentials as a journalist and observer of human nature. Maybe even mention my doubts to your superiors.”

Teddy turned a dull shade of red, “I didn’t think it was anything serious,” he said defensively.

“Didn’t think it was anything serious,” Zacharias repeated, enunciating every word clearly, in a voice which dripped with heavy skepticism.

“Everyone has their phases,” Teddy reasoned, “So did you.”

“So I did,” Zacharias agreed, “That’s precisely why I raised this matter in the first place. Some phases are more destructive than others &c &c.”

“You’re not going to tell Uncle Harry, are you?” Teddy asked him uneasily.

“Well at least you’re upfront about asking me about that,” Zacharias murmured, and then said out loud, “No, I’m not going to. But I think you need to make a bloody good effort at cleaning up this mess before someone else gets hurt.”

“Someone else?” Teddy asked him sharply.

Zacharias grinned at him, “So you _are_ sharp. I’ll leave you to puzzle that one out on your own Lupin.”

He clapped the younger man on his shoulder, “I’m serious, Lupin. I don’t care about the racing, but the drugs are dangerous and the drugs and cars together are lethal. Any deaths or accidents and you’ll have some very difficult explaining to do both on your behalf and your adoptive family’s behalf. The gutter rags will be merciless. Nothing better than a high profile scandal, after all.”

“You’d know all about high profile scandals, wouldn’t you?” Teddy said sotto voce.

Unbelievably, Zacharias Smith actually stiffened at that. Teddy wondered, idly, if this was going to be the moment that marked the demise of his career as a budding journalist.  _You never think before you speak_ , Victoire had told him. She was right. She was always bloody right. 

"I'm -" he began.

“That’s why I’m warning you,” Zacharias replied, in a voice that was devoid of any emotion at all, “Personal experience. Good night.”

He dropped the cigarette he’d been smoking and crushed it with the tip of his shoe. Teddy vaguely remembered, once, overhearing Kitty Perkins tell Betty Vanity how Zacharias Smith had given up smoking after his marriage. Something the Minister had made him promise for the sake of his health. Or the kids. He wasn’t sure which. Either way, the cigarettes had been given up.

This little tidbit, a tiny little voice inside him observed, could fetch him at least thirty galleons. If he was the sort of person who sold other people out, that is.

But he wasn’t that kind of person. Not even if he loathed Smith with every fibre of his being.

“Thanks,” said Teddy, to the cold night air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Féar Gortach is a mythical plant in Irish mythology. In the original myth, the grass causes an insatiable hunger in those who walk upon it. It's also closely associated with the Fear Gorta - a spirit which supposedly walks the earth during times of famine. The Féar Gortach in this fic is based on the version developed by [themonsterblogofmonsters](http://themonsterblogofmonsters.tumblr.com/post/88899892361/hungry-grass-also-called-f%C3%A9ar-gortach-also-called). The grass causes hunger in those who walk on it, but the grass itself, when angered, is prone to attack people in the form of something like a grass inferi.
> 
> MEEP stands for Magical Europe for Economic Prosperity and is, in essence, the magical version of the EU.
> 
> Nerve Restoration Pills are sort of modelled off the Nerve Restoration pills mentioned [here](http://thelethifoldwitch.tumblr.com/post/109822905220/just-as-there-is-in-the-muggle-world-there-are) though here they have much more of a calming than heightening effect.


	10. Hellfire

_The Inferno_ was the beating heart of magical Britain’s nightlife and for twenty years, had managed to remain at the cutting edge of cool. Other clubs came and went and young wix fell in and out of love with them with unfailing regularity, but _The Inferno_ remained electrifyingly cool and every weekend, a long line of twenty-somethings in modern and unusual dress robes trailed all the way down Sybaritik Alley, as they waited to be let in. On some Saturday nights, the line ran all the way around the block and on to Fleet Street. If they were lucky, one of those long dark cars the Ministry had made so popular among the wizarding world’s nouveau riche would pull up, empty some wrockstar or the other – Myron Wagtail with his latest gaggle of groupies, Kevin and Tracey and, on rare and special occasions, the very reclusive Leslie Shaw – and then leave.

People put _The Inferno’s_ continuing success down to the club’s carefully curated entertainment, aura and mystique. Zacharias thought it was all hogwash.

He, because he was of a prosaic – often (and wrongly) mistaken for cynical – bent of mind, put it down to the décor, the fact that you had to have a very particular kind of surname to get inside and the gossip.  Not that he blamed people for being taken in by any of this in the least bit. The ice walls with fire dancing behind them and something the muggles called Tess ( _Tesla_ , Susanna would say with a dramatic roll of her eyes) coils that could make lightning, but indoors were creative conceits that _anyone_ would have found absorbing. The club’s muggleborn owner was even more interesting – more so when you considered the fact that most of the club’s clientele were the sort of people who’d spend their time, behind closed doors, ranting about how ‘those muggleborns were absolutely everywhere’.

Mostly though, he thought, it was the gossip and the scandal.

“Darling please,” Tracey purred clutching the lapels of the bouncer’s robes while Kevin glowered darkly, “Be a dickybird and let them in.”

“I know,” she said in faux commiseration, cutting him off as he opened his mouth to respond, “They’re so dreadfully awful and Michael’s surname is all wrong, but we’re the ones who made you cool in the first place and just think of all the nasty things Betty’s going to scribble in _The Sol_ tomorrow.”

The bouncer joined Kevin in glowering darkly at Tracey Davis, but he inched aside, just a little bit and Tracey promptly grabbed Michael’s arm and dragged him inside.

Zacharias grinned, not in the least bit sorry for the bouncer, and shoved Kevin down the stairs.

“I hate coming here,” he grumbled, “Reminds me of Justin groping you.”

“No,” Zacharias replied, “You hate it because Tracey always flirts with the bouncer and you’re a dog in the manger.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Am not.”

“Are –“

“Children,” said Tracey and then tucked her hand confidingly into the crook of Kevin’s arm, “You can buy me a martini and we’ll leave these sods to do their not-business work or snort drugs or whatever it is they want to do – as long as it doesn’t involve snogging or groping, I won’t forgive you Zach –“

Kevin whisked her off in the direction of the bar before she could say anything more.

“So,” said Michael, “What’s the plan? Besides the not snogging me.”

“You let a bloke feel you up in public _one time_ ,” Zacharias said with feeling, “See any familiar faces?”

“Besides Tracey and Kevin?” Michael casually scanned the crowd, “That’s Killian LaKill, isn’t it?”

Zacharias glanced in the direction Michael was looking, “Seems like it.”

“Makes the whole thing obvious, doesn’t it,” said Michael, “I wouldn’t want to run into Bathory tonight if I were you.”

He looked meaningfully towards Bozo with his camera and Betty Vanity, sharply watching the crowd.

“No,” Zacharias grinned, “Do you see my nephew anywhere?”

Michael looked around, “He’s there. Corner by the stage. With a dark haired girl, nice figure – the lad has taste.”

“She’s twenty-three, get your mind out of the gutter,” said Zacharias.

“Rowena’s tits, what sort of bloke d’you think I am?” said Michael, injured by this unfair assessment of his character, “It’s purely an objective assessment –“

“You read _Wizard’s Quarterly_ and think it’s informative,” Zacharias replied.

“You’re becoming one of those, aren’t you?” Michael said in disgust, “Eyes straight ahead. Feet firmly on the straight and narrow. Whatever happened to the days of ‘bros before O’s’ –“

“We all grew up,” Zacharias replied, his lips twitching slightly, “Sorry Michael, some of us have spouses to go home to, not empty beds.”

“I’m fairly certain my empty bed is much warmer than your married one right now,” said Michael, coolly.

Zacharias’ wand hand twitched reflexively, “Why is it always my marriage?”

“Because you insist on bringing it up every time even though you’re doing a piss poor job of holding it together,” Michael replied bluntly, “You asked for it mate. Glass houses and jinxes.”

“I’m trying,” Zacharias said, unusually subdued, “It’s just –“

“Are we here,” Michael cut him off, “To investigate Besillstun and your nevvy, or are you going to get drunk and spend the whole night mooning over Justin, because if you are, I’m going home and sending Anthony here instead.”

Zacharias sighed, “No. Sorry. Mingle. Keep your ears open. Don’t let Harry out of your sight.”

“You’re buying me drinks,” Michael reminded him, “In case you forgot. I want one of their Dementor’s Kisses. They’re supposed to be utterly foul and potent.”

Zacharias followed him to the bar, carefully ducking his head, so as to not attract Betty Vanity’s attention.

Justin, of course, had no idea he was here. As far as he was concerned, he was out to dinner with Tracey and Kevin, which was close enough to the truth, but not the _entire_ truth. That was a problem. Justin was very fond of knowing the _entire_ truth, _all_ the time. Zacharias was not very fond of letting anyone know the _entire_ truth, _ever_. Most of their arguments boiled down to this little fact.

He ordered himself a rather more ordinary plain Scotch while Michael ordered the infamous Dementor’s Kiss, which as far as Zacharias could tell, involved mixing too many liqueurs and spirits together and then something which made the whole thing go black – he thought it was terribly jejune, but denying Michael these simple pleasures was like taking lollies from a child.

“Ta,” said Michael, carefully taking a sip from his drink, “I’m going to mingle. Stay out of trouble Smith.”

Zacharias raised his scotch in a mock toast.

* * *

Michael watched Killian LaKill drift about aimlessly as he fell into conversation with a witch in her early-thirties. Her name, she told him, with a careless toss of her curly blonde hair, was Titania Fawley – which he carefully filed away because this made her the youngest of the Fawley siblings, and Marcus Fawley’s aunt. She was pretty and naïve in that carefully cultivated way of all pureblood witches and had no problem confiding in Michael that they were all very worried for Marcus and his friends.

“I’m supposed to be watching him,” she said, leaning very close to him and twirling her glass meaningfully.

“Really?” Michael asked her, casually running a hand through his dark hair, “Is it that serious?”

“Well he won’t tell us,” she replied, “You know how boys are and Francis is such a hen about it. Personally, I don’t think a little bit of drugs on the side is going to kill the boy but Francis detests the Flint girl and the Selwyn boy and thinks they’re up to no good – “

Michael gallantly entered on cue, “And do _you_ think they’re up to no good?”

She glanced around and lowered her voice, “Francis, you know, he’s very modern and doesn’t like it in the least, I mean, there’s this investigation and that investigation it’s such a dreadful bore, of course Marcus is going to put it down to a you-know,one of _them_ being in office.”

“Of course,” said Michael, smiling pleasantly at her and ignoring the slight to his friend, “It’s just admirable filial sentiment –“

“That’s what _I_ told Francis,” she grabbed his hand and laughed that annoying flat and sharp laugh that Michael was sure was part of some arcane Slytherin initiation rite because every single Slytherin girl in his acquaintance laughed like that while doing what Zacharias called schmoozing, “But Francis – he’s just like Malfoy – apologizing for something he was barely involved in –“

She twirled her glass meaningfully again, “Francis always did have a big heart,” she sighed.

“Can I get you a drink?” he asked her, before the conversation could slide down a path he had no interest in pursuing, “Your glass seems quite empty.”

“Please,” she said, promptly handing him her empty glass, “I think I’ll have the same one, um, Red-Headed Slut, I think it was –“

Michael glanced from the glass in his hand to her strawberry blonde curls and resisted the urge to laugh.

“Or – no,” she said, grabbing his wrist and looking up at him through her eyelashes, “I know what I want –“

An old familiar feeling stirred at the base of Michael’s stomach with the look Titania gave him.

“O’s before Bros,” she purred, “Thank you darling.”

* * *

“My uncle’s here,” Harry Selwyn murmured softly to Ursula Flint, “By the bar, with Eddie Carmichael.”

Ursula tilted her head slightly and looked at Zacharias Smith, leaning casually against the bar and absorbed in conversation with the dark haired, thin man with a champagne glass in his hand.

“Albus told him,” he continued, “Lupin told me I could sod off if I was going to get everyone in trouble by selling them Sugar Rush.”

“Has he spoken to you about it himself?” she asked him.

“Not yet,” he replied, “Just looks at me, as though I’m a complicated Arithmancy problem.”

“You should talk to him.”

“Are you _mental_?”

Ursula turned to look at him, “If you go up to him and talk to him, you choose the terms of the confrontation and you have a better chance of getting yourself out of this mess. It’s two years in Azkaban for selling Class X drugs and if Auror Potter so much as gets wind of the fact that you, Harry Selwyn, were responsible for getting Albus Severus Potter on to Sugar Rush and then supplying him with the drug later on, you’ll be in very hot water indeed.”

Harry looked mutinous.

“You _and_ your great uncle,” she continued, “Since you’ve so cleverly been doling out the drugs in bottles from his apothecaries and you know your uncle refuses to let well alone where your great-uncle is concerned.”

Harry downed the rest of his drink.

“All right,” he said and strode off purposefully in the direction of the bar.

Ursula’s eyes flitted from the bar to Betty Vanity ensconced in her corner and then smiled to herself.

* * *

“You know,” said Tracey, her voice muffled in Kevin’s shoulder, as they drunkenly danced together, “I feel bad for him.”

“Who?”

“Zacharias,” she said, “Poor boy. He hates being watched.”

Kevin hummed noncommittally.

“Such a shame about Justin too,” she continued, “They’re both so blindly in love with each other, but they’re so cagey about everything for no bloody reason.”

“Hm,” said Kevin, thinking about how nice Tracey’s hair smelt.

“Boys,” she said in disgust, “You’re all terrible.”

“Hey,” Kevin protested, “We’re not _all_ bad. Maybe Michael,” he added thoughtfully, a moment later “Michael’s a wanker.”

“Terrible,” Tracey repeated dolefully, “Buy me another drink.”

* * *

Michael had forgotten entirely about Killian LaKill, Harry Selwyn and Betty Vanity. Titania Fawley improved drastically upon a second, maybe a fourth glance. Even her annoying little laugh improved with time. It was quite musical, he thought, it had a little lilt to it that was quite endearing. Like her snub nose and her cloud of strawberry blonde curls and the slender foot that was currently rubbing slow circles in the inside of his calf.

“You won’t do anything to him will you?” she asked him, her long fingers grasping at the opening of his robes, “I mean, it’s drugs and it’s absolutely ghastly but he’s just a boy.”

“I’m strictly off duty,” he said, and then added, somewhat unnecessarily, in case the point should have been missed, “With friends.”

“Oh,” she beamed at him and Michael thought that this was as good a time as any to put his arm around her waist.

A vague little voice feebly protested about _Smith_ , but Michael pushed it away in favour of snogging Titania Fawley instead.

* * *

“That’s very tactful of Lupin,” Zacharias replied dryly, looking at his nephew, “What else did he tell you? That I’m investigating you all for fraud?”

“I don’t think you can afford the scandal,” Harry’s eyes darted for a moment to something behind Zacharias’ shoulder, before he looked back up at his uncle, “Not with _The Sol_ ready to crucify you and Minister Finch-Fletchley.”

“Don’t you mean you don’t think my godfather can’t afford the scandal?” Zacharias asked him, “Since you’ve so helpfully given everyone bottles with his name on it? Some people might say trying to palm this off on Justin was more evidence of his own petty nature or ah, his blood supremacist agenda.”

“What do you know about his agenda?” Harry sneered, “He disowned you years ago.”

“Don’t tell me he confides in a pimply little twenty year old like you.”

“I know things,” Harry said, in what he thought was a superior voice, “Things I bet you’d like to know.”

Zacharias raised a single eyebrow, thoroughly unimpressed by this statement, “Try me.”

Harry opened his mouth as if to tell Zacharias, but then snapped it shut and looked at his drink.

“Well?” Zacharias asked his nephew, “Do you _have_ anything, or is it all just hot air like your father and your grandfather?”

“Nothing for _blood traitors_ ,” Harry said, trying to sound contemptuous.

Zacharias thought he sounded like a petulant young child.

“Nothing for blood traitors,” Zacharias repeated coolly as Harry turned a bright red, “Is that what they call me when my back is turned?”

“I didn’t –“ Harry stammered, frightened by the expression on Zacharias’ face, “I –“

“Harry,” Ursula Flint materialized seemingly out of nowhere. She smiled tightly at Zacharias and then whispered something in Harry’s ear.

“I won’t keep you,” said Zacharias, when he noticed that Harry had turned to look at him and was trying to form a sentence, “I’d rather not talk to you again, in fact.”

Harry had the grace to blush and retreat with a muttered _sorry_.

“I’m very sorry for whatever he said,” Ursula said, regarding the older man shrewdly, “He’s been very stressed lately.”

Zacharias looked at the dark-haired witch. She was pretty in the way all Slytherin girls turned out to be pretty. They all had that same polished air that meant they looked at home in huge ballrooms with chandeliers or in oil paintings on walls. They all had that same knowing and clever look which even the most poised and polished pureblood from Gryffindor or Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw could never achieve – the difference between Narcissa Malfoy and his mother, he supposed. They were all the sort of girl who was as much at home in diamonds as she was in the blood of an ex-husband.

It was a look, he reflected, which might have looked good on Susan Bones except Susan would have somehow managed to make it look sensible and not something out of a ridiculous stage tragedy.

“I suppose he told you what Lupin said as well?” he asked her.

She smiled, “There’s very little Harry doesn’t tell me.”

So _that_ was how the wind was blowing.

He gestured at the stool next to her and smiled his most charming smile, “Please,” he said, “Let me get you a drink.”

She took his hand and slid on to the stool next to him, “I’d like a Wandbreaker, please.”

Zacharias’ eyebrows shot up at that, but he ordered the drink for her anyway.

“Now,” he said, when the bartender had placed their drinks in front of them, “Maybe you could tell me what my nephew meant when he said neither I nor my husband could afford the scandal, when I brought up his ah, little business on the side.”

* * *

“Is that,” Mafalda peered at the bar, “Pansy, darling, put your drink down and tell me – is that Zach by the bar?”

Pansy Parkinson obediently put her drink on the table between them and then turned around where she was sitting.

“It’s his hair all right,” she said, turning back to Mafalda and leaning back against the couch, “Who’s the girl though?”

“You know,” Mafalda replied, “I have no idea, but I don’t think any of this is going to go well.”

Pansy sat up very straight.

* * *

“Michael seems very busy,” Kevin observed.

“He does, doesn’t he?” Tracey replied, “I hope Zacharias didn’t mean that when he said it was work.”

“You already told him not to,” Kevin said fondly.

“I know. I just have a bad feeling.”

“You always have a bad feeling,” said Kevin and then whispered something about _bad feelings_ and _healing_ in her ear that made her giggle and smack him playfully.

* * *

Ursula sighed, “I worry about Harry all the time,” she said confidingly, “You know how boys his age are – they imagine the world’s waiting to throw itself at their feet and then they find out it isn’t, so they invent things to console themselves with. They grow out of it, I suppose, but they always land up in trouble before that. That’s what happened to my brother Caius and he’s settled down all right.”

“Is that mean to comfort me, Ms Flint?” Zacharias asked her, smiling sardonically.

“Please,” she said, “Call me Ursula.”

“Ursula then,” he said, “I’m not particularly worried about Harry’s future. His type straightens out eventually, but he seemed quite convinced he was part of something much bigger than just petty drug dealing.”

“No, I know what you mean,” she replied, “I wish I had something more to tell you, but Harry’s been full of vaguely worded hints lately. We’ll get what’s rightly ours, we won’t have to scrounge around anymore like the plebs, people will know the correct order of things once more.”

Zacharias wondered what blood purity had to do with motor racing or a minor offshoot of the drug trade.

It was not as though the Selwyns were the progressive sort, or even believers in the principle of equality – Exhibit A: their response to him marrying Justin – but he’d imagined that dealing with the mess Charles Selwyn had left in his wake would have been enough for them for a long time. On the other hand, blood purists were rarely _languid_ or remotely interested in the conservation of effort in the same way that his father was. It stood to reason that they’d have still been nattering on about it, all these years later.

It just didn’t fit with motor racing or drugs at all.

“That’s not very comforting at all,” he said dryly, “The last time I heard that sort of rhetoric we were building up to a civil war in which a lot of innocent people were massacred in the name of the correct order of things.”

“I don’t think he means anything by it,” she smiled at him, “He’s just terribly young and boys, when they’re young, they just don’t know any better. Not like _real_ men.”

She brushed at an invisible piece of lint on his shoulder and let her hand rest there. To Zacharias’ credit, his lips didn’t even twitch the slightest bit at the way Ursula looked up at him through her eyelashes.

He calmly removed Ursula’s hand and placed it on the bar, patting it in a manner that he thought could pass for fatherly. Not that he knew what it meant to pat a girl’s hand in a fatherly fashion; his eldest daughter Ruth was more of the friendly brotherly punches type and Michal was still young enough that he could pat her on her head absently and get away with it. He patted it again and then withdrew his hand, hoping that the entire thing had seemed less hasty and awkwardly managed than it had felt.

“Ms Flint,” he began.

“Ursula, please,” she protested, “It’s so impersonal, being called by my last name.”

“Ms Flint,” Zacharias said firmly, rising from his seat, “You’ve been very helpful, but I’m afraid I need to find the friends I came here with –“

“I think you’ll find they’re all quite busy,” she replied.

He looked around. Kevin and Tracey were quite absorbed in one another. Michael, well, Michael in his usual fashion, had found a pretty and unattached woman – in this case, Zacharias only just about recognized the curls as the familiar curls of Titania Fawley – and somehow seduced her with his non-existent charms, enough that she’d allowed him to stick his hand inside her robes.

“Did I say friends?” he said pleasantly, looking back at her, “I must have meant home.”

“Are you scared, _Zacharias_?” she asked him, his name rolling uncomfortably off her tongue. Only his parents called him Zacharias. Or Justin, when he was in a temper.

“Scared?”

“Scared,” she repeated, “You look like you could do with another drink.”

She put a hand on his shoulder and inexorably pushed him back on to the stool he’d been seated on.

“A Sirène for me,” she told the bartender, “And a Dead Man’s Tale for him. You’ll enjoy it,” she said, turning towards him, “All the men I know do. It’s something to do with the Scotch.”

“Really.”

“I’ve seen _you_ drinking Scotch,” she said, edging closer, “It has such a ring of desperation to it, the name, doesn’t it? A Dead Man’s Tale.”

“And you think I’m desperate,” he said, unimpressed by this assessment of his character.

“You know,” she replied, “I think you are. You’re desperate to get away from me, before someone can see you here, sitting with a lush young woman at the bar in the same nightclub where your husband once groped you in public, only –“

She paused, smiling dazzlingly and then leaned in and whispered in his ear, “There are five pairs of eyes on you and all five of them belong to members of the gutter press, barring your dear friend Mafalda Prewett, but I understand you’ve made good use of her gossipy tendencies in the past.  It’s my turn now. When I’m done with you, you’ll want that drink all right.”

And before he had time to react or push her away, she pressed her lips to his.

* * *

The glass Mafalda was holding slipped and splintered into a hundred little shards on the black marble floor.

It was unfortunate, she would observe later, that it had happened just then, when she was so obviously looking in Zacharias’ direction.

It was also unfortunate that the glass smashing on the floor drew the attention of every single person in the room.

* * *

“Very nice,” said Bozo Blaine, letting his camera dangle around his neck once more, “Front page stuff there, wouldn’t you say Betty?”

“Is it true, Mr Smith?” Betty Vanity asked Zacharias sharply, “Are you and Minister Finch-Fletchley getting divorced?”

“Divorce?” Zacharias repeated faintly, looking around frantically for Kevin or Michael.

“How long have you been seeing Miss Flint?”

“Does Minister Finch-Fletchley know about your infidelities?”

“What does Minister Finch-Fletchley say to all of this?”

 _Justin_ , thought Zacharias miserably as he looked around wildly for Michael or Kevin. Justin was going to kill him. Or worse, look at him like a kicked puppy.

 _Justin_ , he thought, who deserved much better than this.

“Mr Smith,” Betty Vanity’s sharp voice drew him back to the present, “Do you have any comments?”

 _No comment_ , Dennis had once told them. If you don’t know what to say, _no comment_. If you don’t have anything polite to say – _no comment_. In fact, he’d told them, it was probably better for everyone involved if they never spoke to the press at all unless he was around. _No comment_ – the words pinged around his head, even though the room seemed to be spinning wildly.

He was getting old. Four glasses of Scotch was four glasses too much nowadays.

“No comment,” he mumbled.

Ursula’s laughter rang loud in his ears as he pushed Bozo away from him and made his way towards the exit.

* * *

“Don’t you think that was a little extreme?” Harry Selwyn asked Ursula, after she’d given Betty her version of that night’s events.

“I saved you,” she replied, “He’d already started putting two and two together. So thank me properly, Harry Selwyn, or I’ll leave you to be butchered by Betty Vanity next.”

“Sorry,” he said, blushing, “Thank you. You didn’t have to do it, but I’m glad you did it anyway.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, “Now buy me a drink.”

* * *

Justin glanced at his watch, looked at his book and sighed. It was half past midnight and Zacharias wasn’t home yet. The sensible part of him told him that it probably meant they’d all decided to have a few drinks together and forgot about the time. The miserable and sulky part of him told him that _The Sol_ was probably right and Zacharias was probably having a torrid affair with someone on the side. 

This was unfair, the sensible part of him thought, because Zacharias was not that sort of person. He was rude and prickly and sometimes could be temperamental and cutting bordering on cruel, but that sort of duplicitousness would have made him sneer. It ran too perilously close to being like his mother and Zacharias hated his mother.

But then, as the miserable and sulky side of him pointed out, Justin was just so very plain and boring compared to the rest of Zacharias’ friends.

It was hard to avoid that truth when it followed him everywhere in the way strangers seemed puzzled that it was _him_ and Zacharias, or the cautious optimism mingled with pity in their friends’ eyes when they'd announced their engagement.  It sat there in the pre-nuptial agreement his brother had made them draft – _just in case_ , Vincent Finch-Fletchley had said, overriding Justin’s objection that he and Zacharias had survived ten years together even if it hadn’t been _dating_. It chased him everywhere in the way all of Zacharias’ friends knew the same people, read the same books, made the same jokes and somehow, were scintillatingly witty and catty in a way that Justin would never be. Justin – Justin was just plain old Justin Richard Finch-Fletchley esquire and that was it. No jokes, no wit, just a miraculous and rapid ascent to the position of Minister for Magic. And, as Zacharias was so fond of reminding him every now and then, that was all entirely down to the efforts of Zacharias and his friends and not any instrinsic merit or charisma on his part. Which put him back at square one: plain old Justin Richard Finch-Fletchley esq., an overly effusive and utterly forgettable man whose own husband, it seemed, had forgotten him.

He placed the bookmark in his book and put it on his bedside table, quelling these disquieting thoughts with the firm reminder that someone who was bored would _hardly_ agree to work at fixing things, least of all Zacharias, who made a practice of throwing things out instead of trying to fix them – unless they happened to be his grandfather’s Aston Martin, the only transient thing he made a practice of fixing at all. Zacharias was nearly sentimental about it. Justin wasn’t sure Zacharias was as sentimental about marriage, or if he was _prosaic_ about it.

 Justin wasn’t sure he wanted to know, when the door opened and then shut downstairs a few minutes later.

Zacharias entered the room a few minutes later and Justin drew in a sharp breath.

He was unnaturally pale and tired-looking. There were dark circles and a tightness around his eyes and somehow, he looked thin and worn. Like he’d been scraped miserably thin and drained of everything inside him. He hadn’t looked that way at all when he’d gone out earlier.

“Zach,” he said, as Zacharias shut the door behind him, “What’s wrong?”

“Zach,” he repeated, when Zacharias said nothing in reply, “Zach, what’s –“

The look that Zacharias gave him made Justin’s breath catch in his throat.

Of course he’d seen Zacharias stripped of the usually sardonic expression he wore. He’d seen him angry. He’d seen him look tenderly at things – usually dogs, sometimes him. He’d even seen him look _sad_ , on the rare occasion. Fear and vulnerability, though – that was a new look. It made him look unnaturally young and out of place, as though someone else had slipped into his skin.

It made Justin’s heart flutter nervously and not in a nice way.

“Zach,” he said, again, a sharp note of panic entering his voice, “Is –“

“I’m sorry,” Zacharias blurted out, crossing the room in a sudden motion and kneeling by Justin’s side of the bed. He buried his face in Justin’s lap and clutched at the fabric of Justin’s pyjamas with shaking hands.

Justin stroked his husband’s hair gently, “Zach,” he said softly, trying to keep the trembling from his voice, “What is it?”

Zacharias raised his head and looked at him. For a moment it seemed as though he was struggling to find the words to tell Justin whatever it was that had happened, but then he ducked his head.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, in a voice that was barely more than a strangled sob, “I’m so so sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sirene is a cocktail name invented by [EssayOfThoughts](http://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts) as is the phrase 'bros before O's'. Killian LaKill is the creation of [thelethifoldwitch](http://thelethifoldwitch.tumblr.com/post/122890783823/there-are-and-will-always-be-more-than-just-a).


	11. The Green Hell

Scorpius wasn’t surprised in the least bit when he won Slige Midluachra. Albus had overreached himself and crashed out at Mill Point. For that mistake, he had been attacked by Féar Gortach and so, while Scorpius had been _slightly_ surprised when the silver glint of Albus' Aston made no reappearance in his rearview mirror in later laps, he'd shrugged it off as an inevitable failure of Albus' nerves. It had happened to drivers who overreached themselves before. Particularly the ones who thought Sugar Rush was a great way of boosting their nerves for dangerous races. That was one more bullet point on the list of Albus Severus Potter's various sins, the others being things like reckless driving and swaggering about as though he was the nuckelavee's knees. In Scorpius' opinion the Sugar Rush ranked somewhere near the top of the list. It was unforgivable. It served Albus right.

Albus told them later that it had been a combined failure of his steering and his brakes and then on top of that, his engine. Scorpius wondered idly, for a while, if one of the other drivers had had something to do with it because Albus, whatever his other faults were, was hardly the kind of person to race his car in such disrepair. It wouldn’t have been the first time something like that had happened either. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more Harry Selwyn’s triumphant look at the end of the race seemed suspicious. Harry Selwyn wasn’t exactly the kind of person to rejoice in someone else’s victory – Scorpius suspected that he’d be as happy to have him out of the way as he would Albus. In all probability, Harry had had something to do with the entire business, but Scorpius quickly abandoned that line of thought. Down that way lay a nasty set of discoveries that he would much rather think about _after_ the season was over. Probably never, if left to himself. That would have meant having to forgive Albus and Scorpius wasn't interested in doing that. Not until Albus apologized first.

He wasn’t very surprised either when he won at Ballinamore as well. Something had happened to Albus at Slige Midluachra, besides the car crash. He’d walked away looking very subdued and not at all Albus-like. _Pale and drawn and unhappy_ , some treacherous part of his brain whispered with _pity_  and he squashed it immediately. Either way, the whole thing had clearly still been preying on Albus’ mind even at Ballinamore. Scorpius could see it in the creases of Albus’ brow. The way his attention wasn’t fully there. The way he had no pointless taunts for Scorpius. The way he _smiled_ absently at Scorpius as though they weren’t fighting and as though Scorpius was a distant acquaintance Albus was used to serving out one of his polite smiles to.

It would have been unnerving if Scorpius was the sort of person who allowed himself to be unnerved by the vagaries of other people.

Albus was still pale and drawn by the time Bothar Bo Finne came around, a whole month after the incident, but he pulled himself together enough to edge past Scorpius on the final lap and win the race by a narrow margin. It wasn’t much of a recovery, however. He simply accepted his win and then vanished into the night, without so much as a “yah, Malfoy!” or a single taunt about Scorpius’ inability to drive, or Scorpius’ nerves or Scorpius’ being generally smarter than everyone else on the track.

Scorpius was surprised at the vague feeling of disappointment he felt at that. Something of the homeliness of the track, the pattern they’d settled into for two months now vanished in Albus accepting his win with good grace and being _distracted_ , as though there were other, bigger things on Albus’ mind. Important things. Not racing-related things. 

He put it all down to the inevitable failure of nerves and Albus finally getting what he deserved for strutting around like one of his dad's prized albino peacocks.

“It’d be a pity,” Scorpius told Marcus Fawley one day, in a rare moment of candour, “If Albus was to fold at this point.”

“Why?” Marcus eyed him curiously, “Isn’t no competition better than competition?”

“I suppose,” said Scorpius, running a hand through his hair, “Kind of boring though, isn’t it?”

Marcus side-eyed him the rest of the afternoon in a manner that suggested he thought Scorpius could do with some time off in St. Mungo’s.

So here they were in Gloucestershire at Aston Magna, or, as they liked to call it: the Green Hell.

Scorpius loved the track. There was an ugly mathematical precision to it that the other tracks lacked. It tested pure driving ability and not one’s ability to be quick on the draw with a wand or one’s repertoire of anti-dark spells or one’s ability to shed one’s skin and play at being a Gryffindor-ish idiot. There were chicanes and corners which required much more than the average wix’s mathematical skills to calculate the correct entry and exit speeds and the precise amount of time it would take to get from one to another, while constrained by the relatively short distances in which all of this had to be done. It was boring. It was safe. It was thrilling and dangerous. It was everything Scorpius loved about driving.

The danger of Aston Magna derived entirely from slipshod driving and Scorpius thought that anyone who was careless enough to believe that racing involved _throwing_ cars around tracks probably deserved to land face-first in a poorly constructed tire barrier.

Well, there was also the weather, which was notoriously awful, but it was _Britain_ and it was naïve, wishful thinking to expect anything except rain. Downpours, in Scorpius’ mind, occupied a very different level of dangerousness compared to mere fogs or mizzles and therefore, were the exception to this rule. Albus would have ribbed him about this and James would have sneered, but neither of them were there and Scorpius could be just as obstinate about his opinions as they could. 

“Malfoy,” said Harry Selwyn, interrupting Scorpius' train of thought, “Still running the old brake springs?”

“Yes?” he replied, frowning slightly at the casual way in which Selwyn was leaning against the side of his Porsche, "I don't see the need to change them. I wasn’t the one who crashed out at Slige Mliduachra."

“No,” Harry answered him, “You weren’t. But I’d be careful about your brake springs, if I were you. The Green Hell’s pretty brutal on them.”

“You said that the last time we met,” Scorpius searched Harry's face, wondering if he ought to give into the niggling little voice of doubt and pursue this line of inquiry further, “Is there something you’re trying to tell me?”

“Tell you?” Harry bristled visibly, “Well I didn’t know there were rules about how to approach a _Malfoy_ in public.”

Scorpius’ wand hand twitched, but decided that Teddy’s blue shock of hair was far too close for comfort – far too close for him to hex Selwyn and get away with it without punishment.

“If we’re bringing family into this, you’re on very thin ice, Selwyn,” he reminded the man, "You asked me if I wanted new brake springs a week before Slige Mliduachra and then during the course of that race, Albus Potter’s steering and brake system failed. Was that meant to be a warning?”

Harry grinned unpleasantly, “The world doesn’t revolve around you, Malfoy – at least, last time I checked, Albus Severus Potter wasn’t the world.”

Scorpius shot a glance at the shock of blue hair from the corner of his eyes, then bit his tongue and counted to ten before he responded.

“I’m sorry,” he said in the politely freezing tones his grandmother had carefully drilled into him from a young age, the apology coming from his father and mother who had made themselves a career from apologizing constantly to the wizarding world, “If you don’t mind, I have my pre-race checks to do.”

Harry sneered and turned on his heel to go, then turned back and smiled even more unpleasantly than he had before.

“Just trying to be friends, Malfoy,” he said, “Shame your head’s so far up your own arse you can’t see that.”

Scorpius watched Harry’s departing figure with one eyebrow raised. There was no reason, really, for Selwyn to act so prickly about his questions. It wasn’t as though Scorpius _actually_ suspected him for tampering with Albus’ car – no more than he suspected everyone of harbouring ill-intentions towards everyone else. Scorpius made a practice of distrusting people, this was a fact, everyone knew it and there was no reason for Harry Selwyn to have got so worked up about it or made noises about his surname. That was pretty poorly thought out considering the Selwyns’ own less than perfect history concerning the second wizarding war and the little matter of their missing but probably living Death Eater relative. At least _his_ father had made a practice of apologizing for both himself and for his father before him, which was more than could be said of the Selwyns who hadn't bothered with apologizing at all.

They didn't even donate to charity.

Besides, Scorpius had suspected _everyone_ of some kind of illegal tampering at some point. That was why he and Albus were fighting in the first place – though of course, Albus had actually tried to kill him with his _stupid_ Gryffindor-ish driving behaviour, perfected and refined under the influence of Teddy Lupin (maniac) and James Sirius Potter (also another maniac). Did that make the point moot? Scorpius didn’t think so. Either way, the whole thing made Harry Selwyn look extremely suspicious if only because he had reacted so suspiciously to Scorpius being suspicious of him.

He turned away and ran through his pre-race checks with meticulous care. This time, however, he checked the brake system three times before he was satisfied that they hadn’t been tampered with in any way.

* * *

The Green Hell was a long spit of road, surrounded by muddy fields on either side. It ran straight as an arrow, along the ruins of an old Roman road – still hidden by magic even though the wixen enclave at Aston Magna only boasted one lonely old and eccentric witch who'd once shook Harry Potter's hand five times – and was only broken in the middle by a sharp left-right chicane that, unfortunately, lay on the beginning of a slight upwards slope where the road banked slightly as it went over a tiny brook. It was this particular stretch of the track which had lent Aston Magna its nickname; only one or two people could ever manage its required entry and exit speeds without overshooting and spinning out or slowing down and then losing out on the long straight after the chicane. Most simply ended up diving nose first into the low stone wall that ran along one side of the road, or else finished upside down in one of the muddy fields – depending on where one lost control of one’s car.

The fog didn’t help much with navigating this stretch either, especially not at night.

James was starting down this stretch, struggling with his car – a rare Marauder 100 he’d found and saved from a scrapyard because of its name more than anything else and because there were only _fifteen_ of them in the whole world so it _must_ have been _meant_ in the same way his name had been _meant_ – at the tail end of the line when the first stray bits of the fog wafted over the track. In a few moments, these stray fingers had materialized into a dense fog and James Sirius Potter, halfway through the straight as his car rumbled unhappily at being put through its paces, swore unhappily.

The Marauder, or 'Snuffles' as he liked to call it, was a nice little sports car. A brilliant car, even. It just wasn’t very reliable, despite all of James’ incessant and loving tinkering. Today, it seemed, it had decided out of nowhere, that winning was best left to Albus, Scorpius and Victoire and that the best place for James to be was towards the back of the line. This was not an unusual occurrence. In fact, James thought the car had been unusually well-behaved for this season, lasting till the halfway point before throwing a tantrum which he had no choice but to roll with. Albus maintained that it was entirely his fault for choosing to name it after the most temperamental of the Marauders and anyway, only losers named their cars so it was only what James deserved for being such an utter loser. James thought Albus was wrong, but then he always thought Albus was wrong (Albus was always wrong) and he kept Snuffles even if Snuffles did things like decide that James was going to lose twenty points by trundling along the track at a mere 100mph instead of its souped up 180mph.

Which, Teddy had said many times before, was obvious proof that he should have left the car where he’d found it and got himself a Lotus Elan instead if he’d had brains of any sort. That was one reason in a long list of reasons why James and Teddy were no longer on speaking terms.

Snuffles was temperamental and awful. Snuffles was inviolable. Snuffles was Snuffles and James would hear no ill of Snuffles. 

“Not _now_ ,” he whined, at both Snuffles and the fog.

A blurry yellow light appeared shone in his rearview mirror and then without warning, the dark figure of Scorpius’ Porsche emerged from the fog just on the tail of James’ car. James sighed and turned his steering wheel slightly. Unfortunately, Scorpius edged to the other side, just as he pulled to the other side to let Scorpius pass.  James pulled back to the side of the track he’d been driving on before, assuming Scorpius would pass him on the inside - just as Scorpius' Porsche drifted to the other side. They zig-zagged back and forth down the straight like this several times, until Scorpius, losing his temper, flicked his headlights on and off: a rude warning to James to move over and let him pass.

“I’m not trying to hold you up you bloody wanker,” he grumbled and pulled into the outer line as they turned into the chicane.

Snuffles, however, had other ideas. Just as Scorpius drew up next to him on the inside of the first turn, the unhappy whine of the car's engine turned into its healthy roar as Snuffles decided that James should have full power _just_ as he navigated the corner. They were already sliding out of the second turn, therefore, before James could correct his steering, and the rear end of James’ car slammed into the nose of Scorpius’ Porsche. James straightened out and pulled away before Scorpius’ Porsche could take his car out in a spin with it. He pulled over hastily and climbed out, just in time to see Scorpius’ Porsche spin wildly over the banking and into the field below.

It skidded down the field for about ten metres and then the car must have struck a rock or a stone, because the next thing he knew, the Porsche had flipped on its side, then rolled several times before it came to a stop upside down in the muddy field.

James swore and then scrambled down the side of the banking, not bothering with flagging any of the other drivers down. In the fog, it was impossible to tell just how badly damaged the Porsche was – or worse, how badly the crash had injured Scorpius. James hoped fervently that Scorpius wasn't dead or badly injured. Draco Malfoy wouldn't take kindly to the news if he was and James didn't want to know what Malfoy would do by the way of retribution. 

“Malfoy,” he shouted, skidding along the wet grass before stumbling back to his feet and running again.

He breathed in relief at the sight of the thin figure with the ridiculous white helmet stirring slightly in the grass, some distance from where the Porsche had finally come to a rest, and raised his wand in the air, firing a series of red sparks to alert Teddy and the others that an accident had taken place.

“All right, Malfoy?” he asked, Scorpius as he skidded to a stop next to him.

Scorpius groaned and moved his hands from behind his neck, braced himself as if to get up but then simply rolled over on to his back, fingers fumbling at his helmet. His robes were scratched and torn and there was a long and thin red line running along the back of his left hand.

“You bastard,” he swore venomously, when he’d managed to remove his helmet. He batted James’ hands away, “Where’s my wand?”

James dropped to his hands and knees and scrabbled around on the ground, searching for Scorpius’ wand. .

“An _accio_ charm, you stupid wanker,” Scorpius snapped irritably, “Use your wand.”

“Right,” James slipped his wand out of his left sleeve and muttered “ _Accio_ Scorpius’ wand.”

A minute later, Scorpius’ hand was fixed and Scorpius had James Sirius Potter pinned to the ground by the throat.

“How dare you?” he hissed, his normally perfectly coiffed blond hair sticking up in all directions, “You _fucking_ wanker –“

James pointed his wand at Scorpius and hit him in the face with a Stumbling spell. Scorpius winced in pain and released James. James threw Scorpius off and hastily scrambled to his feet with his wand drawn, glaring at Scorpius as he did so.

“It was a bloody accident, Malfoy,” he said angrily, “Not everyone’s out to fucking get you –“

He easily blocked the stunner Scorpius’ sent his way and cast a Bat Bogey hex in response.

“ _Diffindo_ ,” roared Scorpius, undoing the jinx. James dodged out of the way, but only just. The spell caught his left sleeve and lightly grazed him, leaving a thin red streak in its wake.

“ _Levicorpus_ ,” he said, as two sharp cracks sounded and Louis and Molly Weasley appeared out of thin air.

“Put him _down_ , James,” Molly cried, followed by a surprised, “Oh you’re _hurt_!”

“He tried to cut me –“

“Sectum –“

“ _Expelliarmus_ ,” said Louis sharply and calmly held his hand out to catch Scorpius' wand, “James put him down and give me your wand.”

“He tried to cut me with a hex,” said James, still pointing his wand at Scorpius dangling upside down, “He thinks I rammed my car into him on purpose!”

“You refused to let me fucking pass,” snarled Scorpius.

“James,” said Louis warningly, pointing his own wand at him.

James sighed and unceremoniously dropped Scorpius on the ground, then tossed his wand to Louis with a scowl.

"Thank you," said Louis and promptly pocketed out of their wands, "Now we can talk."

“What happened?” Molly asked the two of them, her eyes flitting to the wreckage of Scorpius’ car and then back to them.

“Snuffles,” said James succinctly, “The bloody thing’s engine dropped about halfway through the straight –“

“Really?” Scorpius said angrily to James, brushing away the clumps of mud on his robes and trousers, “That’s the kind of shite you’re going to go with? I’ll tell you what happened,” he turned to Molly, “I came down that straight while this sod’s trundling along at some measly hundred miles an hour and he fucking _knows_ that Albus is not far ahead so he fucking _blocks_ me and fucking _zig-zags_ across the track even though I’m about to fucking lap him – “

“Merlin’s fucking beard, I was trying to let you pass you stupid twit,” yelled James, “I can’t be held accountable for your bloody temper, so don’t _lie_ about shite –“

“ _I’m_ the one who’s lying? Your car came out of that chicane perfectly – enough for you to slam into me and then pull away as though nothing happened –“

Louis Weasley cast silencing spells on the both of them.

“We’re not going to find out what happened this way,” he told Molly, “Not until they can behave like wizards and not wild animals.”

“You think you can handle them?” Molly asked him, as James tackled Scorpius to the ground, “They look savage.”

Louis carelessly reached over and grabbed James’ ear by the thumb and twisted it, pulling James away from Scorpius. He then did the same with Scorpius, before Scorpius could roll away.

“I think I can handle them,” he said, as their faces twisted in pain.

“I’ll go look at the car then,” she said, “See what the damage looks like.”

Louis nodded sharply and departed with the two of them in tow.

* * *

Scorpius eyed the ruined wreckage of his Porsche miserably as Teddy and several others levitated it into the pits. Despite the single body frames he’d fitted the car with, the right side looked like a sadly crumpled accordion and the door refused to shut properly. The windows had shattered and so had the windscreen, though the damage done to the windscreen was his fault entirely: he’d shattered it so he could fling himself out and away from the car when it struck that rock in the middle of the field and then started to roll. One of the door mirrors dangled brokenly on its mounting. When they finally set the car down and Scorpius stood next to it, he realized the whole damn thing was half an inch shorter than it had been when it started out. Even the cars involved in the accident at Autogeddon had come out of the mess looking much better than his, if slightly more crisped at the edges.

He didn’t want to start thinking about the damage to the suspension. Or the engine. Or in fact, anything inside the car.

“Wow,” said Albus, pushing through the gathered crowd, “Tough one to explain to your dad, yeah, Malfoy?”

There was nothing Scorpius wanted to do less, at this moment, than deal with Albus and his stupid taunts and his stupid confident swagger and his stupid messy black hair and sharp, bright green eyes. Or maybe he wanted to punch Albus really hard in the face so that his nose broke. His fists clenched beside him and then all of a sudden, all the pent-up anger and frustration and tension – from the racing and the hiding, from fighting with Albus and worrying about Albus’ crash and Harry Selwyn’s smirking face, from fighting with James, from the crash – it all coiled tightly in the bottom of his chest and he felt like he would explode before it suddenly all just ebbed away and he simply felt tired. Unable to fight. Unwilling to fight. As though he’d been fighting for years now and this was the last straw.

“Please leave,” he said, keeping his voice calm and polite despite the lump in his throat.

He missed the way Albus looked at him with an indecipherable expression on his face before quietly slipping away back through the crowd, Rose Weasley following him looking considerably worried.

“Malfoy –“ began Teddy.

“I’m racing,” said Scorpius, his fists still tightly clenched by his sides, “I’m coming back for Loch Leven. I don't need more than two weeks to fix this.”

“Scorpius,” Maggie said gently, “Don’t push –“

He turned around and faced them all, chin tilted defiantly and his fists still clenched by his side to keep  his hands from shaking and making him feel less than he was – because he was a _Malfoy_ and he was worth more than tears and sulks or apologies and galleons donated to charity or even that bloody mark on his father’s bloody arm –

Even if he'd been as horribly  _stupid_ as Albus had been and proud about the way the Green Hell was  _home_ for him, unlike everyone else. Malfoys rose above the pitfalls their pride led them into. That was what Malfoys did. They rose - above circumstance, above humiliiation. They rose. They won. They triumphed.

“I’ll be back,” he told them, his voice as cool and collected as he could manage, “I’ll fix the car and I’ll be back. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the [Marauder 100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marauder_Cars) is an actual car. Only fifteen Marauder cars were ever made out of which only twelve are currently accounted for. The rest is obviously wizards.
> 
> Aston Magna is a mish-mashed reference to the infamous F1 circuits at [Nurburgring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCrburgring) and [Spa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_de_Spa-Francorchamps). The Green Hell stretch is a further mish-mash of the [Masta Kink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_de_Spa-Francorchamps#Masta_Kink) chicane +straight on the old Spa circuit, with bits of the [Eau Rouge/Raidillon corner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_de_Spa-Francorchamps#Eau_Rouge) thrown in mostly by the way of the corner being slightly elevated + running over a brook. It takes its name after the nickname Jackie Stewart gave the Nurburgring.
> 
> The Nuckleavee is an actual mythological creature, redeveloped for HPverse by [themonsterblogofmonsters](http://themonsterblogofmonsters.tumblr.com/post/107259878083/nuckelavee-only-found-on-the-isles-of-orkney-the)


	12. Speed Fever

Hogwarts  
8th February 2026

Dear dad,

Juno says I shouldn’t write this letter because it’s wrong, but she’s wrong and she says I should call you dear, so I suppose I can do that even if you don’t feel very dear right now.

How could you? How could you be so horrid to Papa? He loves you so much and now this – just slap him, why don’t you?

Well. At least have the courage to talk about it – or if you must, tell him to his face that you want a divorce. Stop hiding. 

Don’t write to me.

Ruth.

* * *

Working as Press Secretary to Justin Finch-Fletchley was not a particular onerous or taxing job. Unlike other Ministers who cultivated less than savoury habits and then spent their lives in office dancing the thin line between being truly daring politically, and having their secrets plastered all over the dailies, Minister Finch-Fletchley was a man of genuinely unimpeachable character. He was also a believer in hard work which made him unpopular with the policy drafters and the Wizengamot, who could not understand _why_ he needed that legislation on finance regulations approved of before the end of the winter session, but as far as Dennis Creevey was concerned, it was a kind of pure bliss because all it meant for him was simple straightforward press statements and where some convincing was needed, a light sleight of hand concerning the truth. Besides which, Justin was rigorously fair about sending everyone home and no overtime, except in the case of rare national emergencies - whether or not he took his work home with him.

Lately though, things had nosedived a bit. Dennis understood it was all to do with family life. Justin refused to talk about it; simply threw himself enthusiastically into his work and buried himself under paperwork. He once finished an entire week's work in two days. And then, deprived of other work to do, he'd started in on everyone else's jobs and well, obviously things had gone downhill from there and Justin had morphed from a kindly if silly authority figure to a slave driver of sorts, albeit one who was slave driving himself to his own death along with everyone else.

Dennis did not say any of this out loud. Justin was a grown man who could take care of himself, besides which the only time they'd ever bothered with baring their emotions to one another was when Colin had died. Even his divorce had only merited a simple ‘I've been thinking, Dennis, and I've counted your days and you're in for a day off - several in fact’. Dennis liked it that way. Once you got on to the road to emotional confessions over tea or scotch, it was a slippery slope to perdition and the end of a neat work-life balance.

He was surprised and slightly offended, therefore, when about a month after the _Inferno_ affair, while he was drafting up the press releases for the new financial regulations bill at two in the morning - it was becoming a bad habit with Justin, but Dennis couldn't think of a way to tactfully tell him that perhaps he was sublimating his home life issues into overwork - Justin came into his office, pottered around meaningfully in a manner reminiscent of the pottering around he'd done before he gave Dennis his leave while the divorce with Maria was still going through, sat down on the chair across from Dennis and began fiddling with a pencil.

“Something wrong?” said Dennis, eventually taking the bait.

“Ah,” said Justin, dropping the pencil and digging his hands into his pockets, “I wouldn't want to bother you with it. Personal stuff.”

“We're mates, right?” Dennis replied, with a sinking feeling. He could hardly be a coldhearted bastard now and turn him away; not when Justin had spent the day wandering around, looking like a kicked puppy.

“Yeah,” said Justin and then fell silent.

“Remember the Inferno affair?” said Justin, after a while.

“Yes,” said Dennis guardedly, “Why?”

“Nothing,” said Justin and lapsed into silence again.

This was going to be like pulling teeth, Dennis could tell. He grit his teeth and waited patiently for Justin to continue.

“You know,” said Justin, with a slight laugh, “They make you swear all kinds of things when you get married, don't they? Till death do us part. In sickness or in health. In poverty or wealth. They never say anything about time and people falling apart because they weren't right for each other in the first place.”

“S’complete rubbish, that's why,” said Dennis, feeling uncomfortable. A few of those shots had gone home. Maria had been very exciting and he was, for all the glamour that clung to him as Press Secretary, quintessentially British. Boring. A dead bore. Like his brother Colin.

“Zach humiliated his cousin in front of the entire Ministry,” said Justin, off on another tangent, “Because he called me a mudblood. He doesn't talk to them. Because of me - his great-aunt and his aunts, even his mum. I mean, that's devotion, right? You wouldn't do that kind of thing for just anyone? Not if you only wanted to show them off, right?”

Dennis didn't know. He'd had a whirlwind romance and a whirlwind divorce. Not nearly twenty years of grinding slowly to a halt.

“No,” he said. The right answer. He wasn't Press Secretary for any old reason.

Justin frowned and tapped at Dennis’ desk.

The pieces were slowly starting to fall into place. The _Inferno_ affair. Vows. Zacharias going on one of his smear campaigns against his own cousin for Justin's sake. Dennis had some vague idea that Justin and Zacharias, deprived of a therapist to mediate their rows, had cautiously tread all around the matter and avoided talking about it at all. Zacharias continued with his mysterious disappearances. Justin threw himself into his work as a way of pretending that the only reason Smith was spending nights away from home was because he - Justin - had been working so hard.

It was a recipe for disaster, Dennis could have told him.

“Do you think I'm a trophy wife?” Justin blurted out all of a sudden.

“What?” said Dennis, caught off his guard by this question. 

Justin simply fiddled with one of the pencils on Dennis' desk, as though he hadn't dropped an emotional minefield on Dennis' desk and expected him to safely detonate it.

“Um,” said Dennis, “Er -”

“Creevey,” said Mafalda, sailing into his office at just that moment, “You were supposed to give me the release mock up by midnight - oh hello Justin.”

“Ah,” said Dennis, still trying to find his ability to speak.

Mafalda looked closely at Justin and noticed the reddening tips of his ears and the long expression he was wearing on his face.

“Hello,” she said, pulling up a chair and sitting down, “Is this a heart to heart? Midnight confessional? Marriage problems?”

Both Justin and Dennis winced.

“Ah,” said Mafalda, the sharp angles of her face softening, “Is this a boys only club, or do I wear trousers enough to count? Do you want me to hex Zach?”

“No,” said Justin, looking miserable, “Don’t – I mean – no – it’s just worse.”

 “He wants to know if he’s a trophy wife,” Dennis blurted out, in the hope that Mafalda would be able to find the words to answer this question, “He’s not one, is he?”

“Did Zach call you that?” she demanded.

“But _am_ I?” Justin replied, in a transparent attempt to dodge the question, “It’s just –“

Dennis rolled his eyes at Mafalda.

“Dump him,” said Mafalda, leaning back in her chair, “If someone can’t respect you –“

“It’s not that simple,” Dennis and Justin said together.

“Dear Merlin, you can’t be serious about this milksop love thing,” said Mafalda, “Was it –?”

Even she was skirting around the Inferno business. The whole affair had been utter misery. Justin, in some kind of denial – and him, trying to chase the press inquiries about divorce and failing marriages away while steadfastly not thinking about how it was precisely two years since his own divorce. A complete fucking mess.

“Yes,” said Justin, “It was – you know – the Inferno.”

“It’s been a _month_ ,” said Mafalda, “You can’t possibly be fighting only _now_ -”

 “Look Justin,” said Dennis, deciding to intervene before Mafalda said something callously cruel, “You’re not a trophy wife mate, you’re not even a wife –“

“Pull your head out of the sand,” Mafalda recommended.

“ _No_ ,” said Dennis forcefully, “Christ – look, Justin, anything Mafalda and I say is going to be shite because we’re not Zach, yeah? Talk to him –“

“He called me a trophy wife,” said Justin, “Because I told him that if he _was_ having an affair, I’d look the other way even, if only he kept it out of the papers – for the kids –“

For several moments, Dennis and Mafalda were silent as they stared at Justin, too stunned by this to offer any kind of help. Dennis had known things were bad, but he had had no idea things were _that_ bad.

“Well,” said Mafalda getting up from her chair, “What I’m going to say is going to hurt like hell Justin, but if _that’s_ your stance then you’ve lost this battle.”

“Thanks,” said Justin, his face pale and drawn. He stood up, “I've tried but - well. Thanks, I guess. For being honest.”

“Justin –“ began Mafalda, but he shook his head at her.

“Thanks Dennis,” he said, “It’s late. You should go home. You should too, Mafalda.”

He slipped out of the office, shutting the door quietly behind him. 

“Oh well done,” said Dennis, when he was certain Justin was gone, "Couldn't have been more cruel, could you?"

Mafalda whirled on him. Dennis was surprised to see that there was genuine concern in her eyes, quickly melting into hurt and anger.

“Spare me the moralizing sermon, Creevey,” she said.

“You could at least try to be a little kind.”

“You’re confusing me with Justin,” she said dryly, “I haven’t got a single kind bone in my body –“

Dennis thought of all the ways in which Mafalda _could_ be kind when they wanted to. Somehow they never seemed to overlap with Justin. Sometimes he wondered if she insisted on being blunt and honest with Justin because everyone else took such care with him – or if it simply was some kind of perverse desire to stand out from the crowd because Mafalda always stood out in a crowd. It was hard to tell with her; how much was genuine, how much was acting, how much she needed to be chided, how much she needed to be thanked.

“Justin has to face the facts,” said Mafalda, “I care about them as much as anybody –“

“Yeah _and_ ,” said Dennis, “There’s a difference between telling someone the truth and fucking punching them in the face while telling them the truth.”

“He’s a grown man –“

“That’s not a good enough bloody reason!” Dennis exclaimed, “Have you ever considered the possibility that he actually might know what’s going wrong and all he wants is a little bit of petting and handholding? That maybe the way Zach treats Justin is really fucking patronizing?”

Mafalda was silent.

“I’m worried,” she admitted, a few moments later, “About Justin, yeah. But _Ruth_ –“

She trailed off and sighed, “She wrote to me. She seems to think they’re going to get divorced.”

“Well aren’t they?”

Mafalda smiled, “Don’t underestimate Hufflepuffs, Creevey. But I’m worried Ruth is going to take whatever happens badly. I'm worried," she paused and waved her hand vaguely, "'cos those two are idiots, you know?”

"Yeah," said Dennis, "I know."

* * *

“You’re a wanker, you know?” said Michael, “A complete fucking wanker.”

Zacharias Smith hunched miserably over his lunch. “I know,” he said, “Merlin, Michael, I know.”

“Did you apologize?”

Zacharias shook his head.

“Justin’s avoiding me,” he said, “I think he slept in his office last night. He didn’t come home, at any rate. Can’t exactly apologize if he won’t come home, can I?”

Michael swore and rubbed his chin with his hand.

“You fucked up,” he said, in lieu of being able to do anything to help.

“Salazar’s fucking bits, Michael, I fucking _know_.”

He hadn’t meant it to come out, during the argument. But it had. The perils of having a cruel tongue that he rarely kept on a leash. It rarely hurt Justin; in the past he had been careful, meticulously careful to keep it on a leash but lately – lately it had become just _too_ easy to turn it on Justin. Justin was so very obliging. He cringed and winced on cue. Zacharias felt like a monster every single time. And then he did it again, because for years now, he’d trod carefully around Justin and Justin’s different sensibilities. Because Justin was so _stupid_ sometimes.

The _idea_ that he’d be happy to turn the other way while Zacharias shagged whoever the hell he wanted to –

Tongue lashings had made Zacharias resilient. He’d been built entirely on the strength of his father’s often carelessly cruel tongue and his mother’s coldness and then later, his friends’ bitter recriminations.

It was hard to remember, sometimes, that Justin was not that person.

“What are you going to do now?” Michael asked him.

“Ruth wrote me a letter,” said Zacharias, “She thinks I should tell Justin if I plan on divorcing him.”

“Bloody Merlin.” 

 “Justin,” Zacharias paused and rubbed his forehead, “Justin seems to believe the tabloids.”

“Well,” said Michael, “You have to admit; you’ve been acting pretty cagey lately. It can’t look good from where Justin’s standing.”

“But an _affair_? With a twenty-three year old?”

“Midlife crisis,” was Michael’s succinct reply.

“Soften the blow, why don’t you?” said Zacharias.

“You’re a wanker mate,” Michael replied, “I’m a fucking wanker and _I_ don’t go around calling any of my significant others trophy wives – honestly, pull your head out of your arse, Smith; you don’t exactly have an innocent face.”

Zacharias sighed and ran his hand through his hair.

“I just don’t know how to apologize for this one,” he said, a few moments later, “Besides going right up to Justin in his office and refusing to budge until he hears me out.”

“Maybe you should,” said Michael.

“Maybe.”

Maybe, Zacharias thought, if he could communicate the whole truth to Justin, instead of relying on half-truths for Justin’s sake – plausible deniability in the face of a rabid and pureblood press when the truth eventually came out. Maybe if he’d had the guts to turf Lisa Turpin out of his office in the first place when she came to him eight months ago. Maybe if he didn’t fucking care about some dead distant cousin of his.

“O what a tangled web,” Michael quoted softly, aimlessly tapping at the table, “We weave, when first we practice to deceive.”

"Piss off, Corner."

* * *

Something changed the night Scorpius totaled his car. Or maybe, Albus thought, nothing had changed at all. All that had happened was that he’d had a moment of crystal clarity, looking at Scorpius’ wan face. Scorpius never looked fragile. Scorpius looked cool and composed, even disdainful – even when the rest of his house skirted around him like he was a bad taste in their mouth; the last of the descendants of the living Death Eaters. He did it _especially_ when he had no one but himself to rely on.

Albus hadn’t thought much about it, but seeing Scorpius looking like he’d been pulled and stretched out of shape – tested to the ends of his limits – struck him hard, like a punch to the gut. It was the look too, the look Scorpius gave Albus after Albus, forgetting for a moment that they weren’t talking, went up to him and tried to make light of a bad situation. He was used to Scorpius looking like he wanted to strangle him – they’d spent their school years with Scorpius looking either fondly amused or like he wanted to murder Albus, preferably slowly and painfully. He was even used to the disdain by now. For three months now, Scorpius had been looking downhis long aristocratic nose at Albus, like Albus was only three inches tall.

On that night, at Dartmoor, Scorpius had looked at him as if there was nothing he’d have liked more in the whole world than for Albus Potter to go away and leave him alone, as if by looking, Albus could shatter the fragile pieces that made Scorpius Malfoy and leave him there strewn across the racetrack for the rest of them to put back together. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great _crash_ – and all the heroes’ sons and all the heroes’ daughters couldn’t (wouldn’t?) put him back together again.  Humpty Dumpty was more than just another bloody fragile egg in the box. Humpty Dumpty was too fucking polite.

Politeness was a veil that Scorpius wrapped about him when he shut people, whose names were not Albus Severus Potter, out. Albus belonged on the inside, the place where he could get under Scorpius' skin. Where he could  _move_ Scorpius. Albus was  _not_ a stranger.

Maybe, just _maybe_ , this time Rose’s Gryffindor-ish morality was right.

It was kind of sick too, Albus thought, as he strolled along the path to the garage from Malfoy Manor, that Mr Malfoy didn’t know any of this. If Scorpius crashed his car again – and all because of him, driving recklessly because Albus Potter was a right wanker when it came to winning – Merlin, but Draco would have a fit, and if Scorpius _died_ –

“Malfoy,” said Albus, opening the door to the third garage, where Scorpius kept his car. There were doors and odd bits and pieces Albus vaguely recognized from the Porsche piled haphazardly across the area. All that remained of the car was a rough skeleton, straightened out now, from what Albus could tell.

“Who’s it?” said Scorpius’ voice, from underneath the car.

Albus got down on his knees and peered underneath, where two legs were sticking out.

“’S me. Potter.”

“Go away,” Scorpius replied.

Albus settled himself against the car. “Sorry,” he said, “I’m not moving till we talk.”

“Piss off.”

“Hiding’s a terrible way of dealing with shite.”

“And you know all about dealing with shite, is it?”

“Better than you,” Albus retorted, “C’mon out stop being a coward.”

“Piss off, Potter.”

“Coward,” said Albus.

“I said _piss off_ –“

“Coward,” said Albus, “Coward, coward, coward –“

It was probably not the best way to begin an apology, but it got Scorpius out from underneath the car.

“Don’t you have something better to do?” Scorpius demanded irritably, “Someone else to bother? One of your stupid _Gryffindork_ friends to bother?”

Albus winced.

“I came to apologize, actually,” he said as nonchalantly as he could, “Don’t you think it’s time we moved on from this you know –“

He trailed off and looked at Scorpius hopefully.

“No I don’t know,” Scorpius replied, “I don’t think you know either, if you think this makes you the better man.”

“I don’t _want_ to be the better man,” said Albus, “Salazar’s snakes, Scorp, I’m _apologizing_ –“

“I didn’t hear the words ‘I’m sorry Scorpius, for being an utter arsehole and nearly getting you killed’ actually leave your mouth,” Scorpius replied, “So forgive me for being a bit skeptical and thinking this is all part of your Potter poster boy charade – or that this has something to do about being the better man, so _you_ can be petted and lauded – Albus Potter, the boy who had the courage to walk away from a fight and show the boy he nearly killed because he was a _wanker_ , up as a _goddamn cad_ –“

“Scorpius –“ Albus began, “That’s not –“

“Isn’t it?” hissed Scorpius, sitting up so that he was face to face with Albus. There was a bright and unnatural sheen to his normally cool grey eyes, “ _Isn’t it_?”

“I want us to be _friends_ again,” Albus answered, “You sound like the Quibbler and the Sol had a lovechild – a tinhatted lovechild –“

“Get out,” snapped Scorpius.

“Scorp –“

“I’m busy,” said Scorpius, evenly, “I need to fix my car. Please leave.”

“Scorpius – no listen,” said Albus, “I’m tired of fighting. You’re going to hurt yourself and I’m tired of fighting –”

Scorpius pushed himself off the floor, walked to the garage door and held it open, silently. For a moment Albus considered fighting this one out – short of hexing him and physically throwing him out, there was little Scorpius could actually do to remove Albus from the garage and Scorpius was not that sort of person – and getting Scorpius to listen to reason. Scorpius never could withstand the twin forces of sheer dogged persistence and relentless logic. Scorpius was the reasonable one. Scorpius was like a plastic sheet: hammer and hammer at him and he would eventually bend and give in. Albus was good at hammering. It was the reason they’d become friends. If he hadn’t hammered and hammered, Scorpius would have been a silent nobody, hidden behind walls and walls of impenetrable Malfoy politeness.

Something in the way Scorpius’ mouth was pulled into a thin, straight, hard line stopped him. Wordlessly, Albus got up and made his way to the door.

He stopped just outside the door and turned to face Scorpius.

Up close, Scorpius looked thinner and more tired than ever. He looked _old_. He looked like he would have willingly left Albus behind, stranded on an island in the middle of nowhere because of the thing, whatever the _hell_ it was, preying on his mind. It seemed impossible that it could merely be Albus that was the cause of all of this, as though Albus alone could have stretched and distorted Scorpius and made him fragile. 

That was when Albus had his second moment of clarity, looking up into Scorpius’ tired grey eyes – they looked so _strained_ , he must have been working day and night to get that bloody Porsche working, without a single thought to his wellbeing. He really was worried. He wanted to shake Scorpius and yell it at him. He wanted to punch Scorpius until he got the damn idea inside his head. He wanted Scorpius to stop looking at him like he was on the other end of a telescope, like he was a stranger or a piece of dirt.

“I’m serious,” he said.

“I don’t care,” Scorpius replied, and then added, nearly as a spiteful afterthought, “ _Potter_.”

“Not everything,” said Albus, picking his words carefully, “Has to be a fight.”

Scorpius’ mouth curled up in a not-quite sneer, an expression that demanded to know what Albus knew about this.

“Thanks for the patronizing advice,” said Scorpius, “But I don’t care.”

He shut the door in Albus’ face.

* * *

Loch Leven was bitterly cold. A heavy mist hung over the tiny island of Eilean Munde. The trees stood out like bare white skeletons against the landscape, broken only by the glistening white of tombstones and an old abandoned ruin of a church. The track was frozen and slippery from the frost and the mist. Not an ideal place for getting his Porsche back on the track, but Scorpius didn’t have a choice. Or well, he had a choice but it was the kind of choice that was a non-choice; back down and watch everyone look at him pityingly and some of them mutter about how he was a coward. Ergo, a non-choice. Scorpius Malfoy did not need anyone's pity, or their backstabbing whispers either.

He should have been a _Gryffindor_. Would have been, if his determination wasn’t centred around winning.

Winning at all costs. It seemed the hitherto latent pureblood morbidity he thought he’d escaped had finally reared its head and forced him to face the facts in the middle of a graveyard haunted by a lone restless spirit and lonely flames that flickered into life when someone was about to die. He had doomed himself. Scorpius Malfoy, doomed by his fatal flaw; the need to win at all costs. The thought made him want to throw his head back and laugh long and loud. It seemed finally the spectre of Guy Vaughan was to be laid to rest and another spectre would take its place instead. Scorpius, dead, lying in the frost. Scorpius, tossed from his car. Albus, Albus consumed in the smoking inferno of his Aston Martin. Scorpius, winning. Scorpius in first place, Scorpius with empty, cold eyes – a Scorpius who could, like Albus, give no thought to his own safety and a Scorpius who would kill. He had made a promise and he would see it through; he was not a faithless Slytherin. He would fight. He would win. He would be what they’d made him.

The images flicked through his mind rapidly – the track disappearing from before him. His mother would have called it latent Black madness. His mother wasn’t there to see the wildness flickering in his eyes, or the way his car slipped and slid madly around the track. His mother was miles away and safe in bed. The thought should have made him feel sad or guilty, but it left him feeling curiously empty. All he could think about was the roar of his motor and the sheer _power_ that he was sitting on top of.  

It seemed as though the fire had gone out of Albus and possessed Scorpius, fanning all those things he kept reigned in carefully – all those passions and all those strange and wild thoughts he hid away from the world – into a dangerous conflagration. Albus stood, shoulders hunched, smaller than he should have been. Scorpius felt that if he tried, he could have conquered the whole world in a single stride. Albus drove like a man with no fire and fight left in him. Scorpius drove as though all of hell had been emptied and was riding behind him.

Three days ago, Albus Potter had come round to Scorpius’ home and demanded he be allowed to apologize. Typical Potter, really. He said he was worried, he looked at Scorpius as though he was fragile and breakable and needed sheltering from the big bad world and all its storms. He said it wasn’t about him, but that was a lie. It always was about him. Even saving Scorpius was an act of selfishness, one designed to make Albus feel better about himself.

Recklessness was the driver’s number one enemy. Recklessness was Albus Severus Potter’s biggest fault. Tonight, Scorpius turned it on him.

The brakes on Albus’ Aston screeched, its rear wobbling precariously as Albus tried to steer it back on course, as Scorpius rammed the nose of his Porsche into Albus’ car.

“Don’t be a coward _now,”_ Scorpius murmured to himself, as the brake lights on Albus’ car continued flashing. He flicked his headlights on and off several times in a warning to Albus to get out of the way.

It did the trick. Albus’ Aston roared, all of a sudden and steered directly on to Scorpius’ path.

Scorpius gave into the temptation. He threw his head back and laughed.

* * *

“Fucking hell,” swore Douglas Thomas-Finnigan, swerving hard off the track, directly into a Celtic cross to avoid Albus and Scorpius as they thundered down the track, cars scraping at each other as they drove.

“ _Mental_ ,” he said to himself.

* * *

Victoire screamed as her car skidded wildly off the path and towards the dark waters of the Loch.

“ _Albus_ ,” she shrieked, “ _You fucking sod_.”

* * *

Scorpius won the race, skidding hard into one of the graves scattered across the island as he crossed the finishing line. Rose wished she was more like her aunt and less like her mum; a hex or a punch would have been more cathartic. But Rose was Rose and Rose used _words_ not fists - unless the person's name was Albus Severus Potter. Sticks and stones may break people’s bones, but words changed minds. Probably not the original saying, but the one her mum had passed down to her at any rate.

“You complete and utter _wanker_ ,” Rose told Scorpius, “Just because you’re fighting with Albus doesn’t mean you get to put everyone else at risk.”

Scorpius shrugged carelessly.

“This isn’t you,” Rose continued, following him as he picked his way through the graves to the pits, “Stop acting like a child.”

It wasn’t like Scorpius to blithely dismiss her safety concerns, not when he’d often been one of her few allies when it came to stopping the others from doing something stupid like racing in the middle of a downpour. It was as though he’d been replaced by another person entirely. Rose wondered if it had to do with Albus’ non-apology – honestly, she’d have thought that Albus had greater sense than to begin an apology by calling Scorpius a coward, but evidently she was wrong. But a _non_ - _apology_ could have hardly turned Scorpius speed-mad. In her experience, speed-fever set in early and on drivers who were of a highly strung and excitably disposition – and Scorpius was neither of those things.

“But I am a child,” he told Rose, “I’m only eighteen.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Wild oats,” he said airily, “Can't you smell it in the air?”

“I smell _burning rubber_ and _smoke_ in the air.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “I can’t think of a better way to go, can you?”

“If you’ve got speed fever,” said Rose, “Leave everyone else out of it –“

“It isn’t just me, is it though?” said Scorpius, turning around and coming towards her, “It’s every bloody one. It’s your cousins. It’s your friend, Teddy. It’s the reason Lucilla Yaxley died. Why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I do it as well? Or are some people not _allowed_ to?”

“You’re _mad_ ,” said Rose, backing away from him, not liking the odd glint in his eyes, “You’re reading too much into things.”

She wasn’t superstitious, but the glint in Scorpius’ eyes and the bare white trees and the graves made her feel uneasy.

“ _Scared_ , Weasel?” said Scorpius, with an unpleasant sneer.

The sneer brought her back to herself. _Ridiculous_. Scorpius was nothing but a teenage boy with an overinflated ego; just like all the rest of them. Full of the same kind of vaguely worded threats that boiled down to nothing but hot bloody air. And how _dare_ he threaten her, as though she’d _believe_ he’d have the courage to strangle her here in the dark, with so many of her friends and family around –

A few yards away from them, a small flame flickered into existence, the only one on the entire island.

* * *

“That was something,” said Maggie Donovan, lighting a cigarette, “How’s Victoire?”

 “Coping,” Teddy replied, “Angry.”

“What are you going to do about it – them?”

“I don’t know,” Teddy admitted.

Maggie Donovan sighed and took a long drag on her cigarette. Her hands were shaking slightly, Teddy could see. He sympathized – he felt like a newborn deer himself.

“D’you have ideas?” he asked her.

“D’you think banning them would work?”

Teddy laughed, “Short of destroying their cars, I don’t see how we’re going to stop them.”

Maggie swore and kicked at a loose pebble. “I can’t believe we were so fucking blind – so fucking slow.”

“What do we do now?” Teddy asked her, “Cry over spilt milk?”

“I have no fucking idea,” she replied, “'S all we can do now, innit?”

* * *

Scorpius was a dead man.

Tonight he’d tasted the thrills of speed, better than any drug in the world, better than the tight care with which he held himself, better than living with the shadow of a burned man and his father looming over him. He understood Albus now, a little, or would have, if he'd been thinking about Albus at all.

Scorpius thought about flying.

“Selwyn,” he said. Any other time, he would have dwelt on the unfairness of Teddy Lupin scolding _him_ and not Albus, but tonight he had seen the future: a single flame, floating gently above a cross in the dark.

Tonight, Scorpius was a dead man.

“You remember that brake spring you were telling me about?” 

Harry Selwyn raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“I’ve changed my mind,” said Scorpius, “I want one.”

“Why the sudden change of plan?” asked Harry, studying Scorpius carefully, “'S not like you.”

“Isn't it?” Scorpius asked him, “You can take it or leave it.”

“I’m just curious,” said Harry, holding his hands out in front of him in a gesture of innocence.

“I’m going to –“ Scorpius broke off, “You know what it’s like – ‘s why you’re doing this.”

“Yes,” replied Harry, “I do.”

“I want those brake springs,” said Scorpius, “Please.”

“All right,” he said, “My place. Wednesday morning.”

“Thanks.”

“Malfoy,” said Harry Selwyn, as Scorpius turned on his heel to leave, “Don’t do anything stupid like tonight, yeah?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Oh, what a tangled web we weave...' is a quotation from the poem [Marmion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmion_\(poem\)) by Sir Walter Scott.


End file.
